Contractions on the drip vs natural contractions

[SoggyBottoms]

Hi, I'm 38 weeks with DC2 and hoping to go into labour naturally in the next couple of weeks.

With DC1 I went 17 days overdue and had to be induced on the drip. I dealt with it okay, all things considered, but I am curious. Everyone says the contractions are much stronger and more painful on the drip than natural ones. Has anyone experienced both and can you tell me if that's true? I don't want to be lulled into a false sense of security!!!

Thank you.

I find it hard to remember.

I have never made it to the actual business bit of labour, but I've spent a lot of time having contractions.

Drip - it had been on since 7am, slowly ramping up until about 1pm when I asked for something to help with the pain because I'd reached my limit. They tried a shot of morphine which didn't do anything, I knew I wasn't coping and asked for and got an epidural (and a few hours after that EMCS)

No drip - I'd been having regular contractions for a week, which ramped up over a couple of days until I went to the hospital because I couldn't cope any more at home. They knocked me out with pethidine for an hour (I had barely slept - because of the contractions - in days), and then DP got them to give me gas and air, and I coped for another day before I went for EMCS.

So even though I can't remember, from what happened, I'd say that yes, natural contractions are easier to deal with than induced ones.

In my experience yes natural much easier to cope with.
DD - had a couple of days of irregular contractions which failed to go anywhere and as waters had broken at beginning I had drip to accelerate. I 'coped' for about 3hrs - it was awful and I hadn't a clue what was going on. So had epidural and then lovely calm birth from then.

DS had steady contractions for 12hrs before I asked for pain relief. They checked me, was fully dilated and ready to push. So i just had gas and air and he was born 30mins later. Much noisier birth but just as lovely.

For me the difference was that with the drip they sort of ran into each other and I didn't get the beautiful 'going away' feeling in between each contraction, which makes it much more manageable.

I experienced contractions on drip and natural contractions in the same labour (natural contractions going well until my waters went nearly at transition and DS2 got into distress, contractions petered out in the panic, drip got them going again).
They felt a lot harsher and more painful to me - both than the contractions earlier in that labour and the ones throughout my previous one (no drip).

I have laboured twice with the drip and three times without. With the drip I would say yes they are more intense. They don't build up in the same way. But that being said my labour with drip was still active, stayed mobile and just used gas and air. So it was still manageable. If anything my most intense labour was one without a drip but it was all so fast (under an hour) that it was harder to cope with.

I have had one with the drip, one without. Maybe I'm strange but I honestly didn't notice a difference.

I had about 30 hours of natural contractions before I ended up on the drip for the last 6 hours (before we all gave up and I had an emcs).

I don't really remember there being that much of a difference but maybe that's because they had intensified on their own, rather than going straight on the drip with no contractions iyswim? I was also off my face on g&a and diamorphine which probably took the edge off!!

I found I managed better with the natural ones then the ones from induction. But that may just be because I was prepared for them the second time round when I went natural where as with my induction it was my first and I had no idea what to expect iyswim. I also done more prep second time round, yoga and breathing techniques which really helped.

I had both in the same labour.

My labour started naturally. The contractions weren't exactly a walk in the park but they were manageable. However after 2 days of labouring my contractions slowed down so I elected for a drip to speed things up as my waters had broke and I was getting to the stage where a csec may have been required. I found the contractions on the drip to be much more painful and they came on very hard and fast. That said it may have been impacted by my exhaustion and general lack of energy as I was vomiting a lot. I only had gas and air so it wasn't too horrific but I think if I ever have a drip again I think I will have an epidural

I had one induced about with synto drip. Excruciating pain. I tried to go without epidural but was hallucinating. After 20 hours I relented and had an epidural.

Natural labour next time round was a walk in the park. No pain relief, the pain wasn't that bad

I had a induced drip birth (from cold laid flat on my back), then a natural birth with the next (lots of birthing positions). The difference was massive. The first was the worst pain ever (from 1cm dilated!), the second was piss easy (went to hospital at 8cm dilated as thought I was early stages). Second sort of plopped out and I thought 'is that it?! Was so surprised it was manageable and positive.

I had the most horrible contractions on the drip. I had to be induced at 40 weeks because dd had medical issues and I clearly wasn't ready to go. It took hours to get to 5 cm dilation and the pain was overwhelming and constant, 1 minute between contractions. Contractions was like an electric shock that sent me to the ceiling and writhing in pain. My dd eventually went into distress and had to be pulled out via a crash section. I had a trainee midwife who kept cranking up the dosage and was reading a book rather than monitoring me and she did not notice my dd had decels for 15 minutes. The look that the Registrar gave her when she finally noticed and ran out to get him spoke a million words. My maternity notes later went missing ...

I normally have quite a high pain threshold but that was inhuman. After that, my entire abdomen ached like I had done a thousand sit ups. Between that and the c-section, I could not move for 48 hours.

I will never recommend an induction using the drip except as a last resort.

I had ds with the drip (waters broke with blood in, went into spontaneous labour but failed to progress after 24 hours so had to have labour augmented) and dd naturally (5 hours start to finish) and found the drip much more painful and intense. I think that your baby's position also effects it as both my babies were back to back but dd turned and all of a sudden the contractions became more managable. With ds I begged for an epidural but was told i couldn't have one- I was till having nightmares 6 months later. Dd's birth was intense as it was quicker but much easier than the drip. My entire birth plan was "If you try and put that fucking drip on my without an epidural I'll have you up on a charge"!!