Induction after normal labour - what do you think ?

[vivat]

Just been for my 41 week appt at the hospital (i'm 40+5 now) and have been booked in for an induction on Monday ie 40+10. Last time I went into labour on my own at 40+6 and had a normal delivery. This pregnancy has also been problem free and I am very keen to avoid intervention so I refused a sweep today as I feel it's just too early.

I think an induction on Monday is just too early (assuming everything continues to be problem free, baby moving around etc). Any thoughts ?

If this is what you belive be firm, I am the one who gets in a tizzy about inductions! If you willingly submot yourself for daily checks on the baby then you should be fine and they should agree. Be very firm and calm. It cna work I was able to go to 42+1 with DS
And everything went wonderfully.
If they do insist on an induction, ask them to check your cervix for softening, if it is ripe then induction may be easier.
this is only what I have heard from my experience and friends,
either way hope it all goes swimmingly!

thanks dinosaur and piffleofagus (great name) - dh took me home from the hospital the long way round with all the speed bumps but nothing as yet. I guess it's lots of raspberry tea over the next few days. Have been assuming all along that my cervix would know what to do. Maybe it's forgotten !

babies come out when they are ready, when ds arrived allegedly 2 wks and more overdue, one would expect him to be wrinkly, for the placenta to be less juicy and healthy looking and for his nails to be extra long...
He was born without hardly any vernix coating, with noone of the above signs of being overdue! I tried to tell the docs, I ovulated close to my period but they would not have it!
2nd time dd arrived 2 weeks early!

Hi vivat! Good to meet you at the last city meetup.

I had an induction with dd2 (3rd baby) 48 hours after my waters had gone. Like you, I was desperate to avoid intervention, and tried pretty much everything (reflexology, acupuncture, Routemasters, running (!!) to no avail.

In the end the induction was absolutely fine, and I had a wonderful natural upright delivery without any stitching or funny stuff, even though it took loads of gel and drip to get her moving. So it doesn't have to be bad.

Having said that, with ds I had acupuncture, and it definitely worked.

Good luck!

vivat - think you are right - far too early to be thinking about that especially if you were over your dates first time. Both mine were 12 days over, if I had let them induce me when they wanted to first time I never would have had the fantastic home birth I had planned. Pretty sure you are safe and within your rights do delay induction until 42 days as long as you go in for a trace/scan. best of luck!!

I would hold out for as long as possible- but you can go for daily checks at the hospital just to make sure heartbeat ok etc...Have you tried reflexology? (see other thread)sometimes the body just needs a bit of a helping hand-(but only when artificial hospital time limits are set!!)
Years ago I'm sure they just let you deliver when you were ready to- midwives out there... why is there such a deadline now?? (I'm sure they still had the same concerns years ago- but I bet there were no where near so many inductions- or caesarians for tat matter!)

Message withdrawn

stick to your guns. the midwives i had said they routinely go to 42+ and one of my midwives went to 43 once, and there was no problem with the baby...

3 out of 4 of my labours were induced as they were all over due but apart from ds1 all the labours were around 1 and 1/2 hours and involved nothing more than breaking my waters so the induction turned out to be no big deal.

vivat how old are you (don't mean to be rude but there is more of a problem with older mums (ie 35-40+) as there is a very small but increasing risk of stillbirth the longer you leave it/older you are (don't mean to alarm you but those are the facts). However, as others say, if you have regular checks then that should offer some reassurance. I was strongly against induction as wanted natural birth etc and was 40+10 with DS1 when I went into labour (was due to be induced the next day IIRC). Second two were a bit more prompt so it wasn't an issue! But actually my DS(ister) was induced twice (she's a bit older than me and was given advice above) and it was fine, I think she would recommend it. My hospital induces at 10-12 days over so 10 days over is not unusually early.

vivat,don't have any advice, but just wanted to say that I am sure the baby will come soon, and hope you can distract yourself from fretting by trying all the old wives' tips, eg cooking and eating hot curry, routemasters, sex, and alternative therapies like acupuncture, homeopathy, moxibustion, aromatherapy. You looked so well when I saw you. Take care.

Vivat - I was induced at 37 weeks because of cholestasis and I would definitely recommend holding out for as long as you can. If you do have to be induced, my experience is probably not relevant for you, because inducing early is much more difficult, so I've heard, than inducing late. Having said that, once they broke my waters and put me on the drip (syntocinon?), it didn't take that long and second stage was only just over an hour.

Definitely worth giving acupuncture a try - worked a treat for a friend of mine.

GOOD LUCK - hope it happens soon.

Thanks everyone (this thread has made the homepage too !). I have booked an accupuncture appt for Sat morning so if that doesn't get things moving, I will ask the hospital if they will do a sweep on Monday (which you've all made me feel much better about) followed by the induction a day or two later.

Clary, i'm 34 so just outside the 35+ age range, the baby is moving around fine at the moment, but I'm very happy to monitored if that' s what the hospital want to do.

It's silly really because I was fine until i went to the hospital yesterday, and of course now i've been fretting about it which is probably only going to delay things even more. Your messages have been very comforting though and have made me feel much better.

Oh and just to take my mind off things, ds fell out of a tree today (he's three) while with the nanny and when my dh rang to tell me (I was buying biscuits in M&S at the time) i thought he said 'he's stopped breathing' rather than 'it's stopped bleeding'. And that still didn't bring on labour !

just booking the induction worked twice for me - both mine were born the day before the induction was booked (40+12 and 40+8).