Mobile labour with no internal examinations?

[constancereader]

I am unable to tolerate having internals. I haven't always been like this, but have developed the condition recently due to some traumatic events in my life.

I recently gave birth and my midwife was very understanding and did not examine me to see how I was dilating, but she did strap me up to a monitor throughout my labour. I went along with it as I was so apologetic about being such a pain. I hated being on my back throughout though, but I assumed it was necessary because of not knowing how far I was dilating. I ended up having an ECS as I was pushing for a long time with no progress and the baby's heartbeat was dropping.

I am just wondering about my next labour. Has anyone else experienced a mobile labour with no internals? I would really like to try and do it at home! (This is all speculative btw, I'm not pregnant).

First labour: lots of internals - bloody awful! I don't know why, but I find them extremely painful, not to mention intrusive. So, next time, I stressed that I wanted to minimise any internals, to avoid them at all if poss. In the end I only had one, just after I yelled "I want to start pushing". Because the labour ward was heaving that night, and I had insisted that I wanted to be looked after by only one particular midwife, nobody had really had a chance to watch me labouring adn get a good idea of how I was doing. I allowed this particular midwife to do the internal, because I knew she was very gentle and had small hands. I say 'allowed', but I wasn't very co-operative!

Third time around I gave birth within 15mins or so of arriving in the labour ward, but, because I'd been under constant observation during that time, the midwife didn't feel the need to do an internal, and when I was ready to deliver, I did, without any internals or assessments. She tried to check the baby's heartbeat with a hand-held thingy between contractions once I was in 2nd stage, but that required me to lift my belly out of the water (birthing pool). The first time, I complied, but it felt so wrong that I refused to do so afterwards. Apart from that, it was a completely hands-off birth wrt unrequested contact. I did ask for certain things as they came up, like help keeping my bum underwater, and for the midwife to bring the baby up through the water to me.

I did have to have an internal afterwards, for her to assess whether I needed any stitches. I used G&A for that - more than I had through the entire labour!

yes, perfectly possible. i laboured standing, kneeling, on the ball etc moving round and never once had an internal. come to thinki of it i don't think i've ever had one during even ante natal care either of my pregnancies. good luck for next time in every way i wish you all the best.

So it is possible then. Thanks for your story. I like the 'not very co-operative' comment, reminds me of the moment the consultant came in and tried to do an internal despite my lovely midwife pointing out that I didn't want any. That was the only time I swore during the entire proceedings!

Cheers georgiebs.

Did you notice the recurring theme of non-compliance? A lesson I learned from my first labour: I am the person labouring, I am in charge - everyone else is there to assist me. I grant permission, not anyone else. An attitude that made a world of a difference to my 2nd and 3rd labours.

ladies, nice to hear a bit of positive taking responsibility for yourself attitude!

I h ad four mobile labours with no internals

I stayed at home though which may have made a bit of difference

constancereader, if you decide to have your next baby at home you'll be looking at a home VBAC or HBAC. If you haven't already found it I'd recommend the vbac yahoo group There are lots of people on there who have had mobile labours without any internal examinations. I had my last baby at home after two cesareans - I requested one examination because I wanted to know what was happening, but the midwives would have been totally OK with me having none as we had talked about it in advance.

It would be interesting to know why you were on the monitor continuously last time as there is lots of evidence that this increases the likelihood of cesarean and shouldn't be done routinely.

This is something that's really bothering me too, constance. I feel exactly the same way as you about internals. I am booked in for a C-section but am terrified of going into labour or having waters break early, in case they're going to say I have to have an internal for some reason. I know you can refuse them, but I'm worrying that there'll be a reason they're going to say that it's vital I have one...

my last labour I was mobile, with no monitoring (despite it being my 2nd VBAC) and I only had one internal when I was 3cm dilated - and I "wanted" (well didn't really but needed to know for myself that I was really in labour - history behind that one lol) that one to see how far I was.

Thank you so much. It does make me feel much more empowered! My ante-natal midwife was very understanding about my fear of having internals, but gave me the impression that it was a problem which had to be overcome, rather than telling me it wasn't necessary to have them at all.

I am starting to think that if I had been in a different position I would have had a greater chance of a vaginal birth. This would have made a great difference as my c-section was so late stage that it was described as a 'nightmare' to stitch me up. The surgeon apologised to me three times afterwards, I thought she meant about the time it took to stitch me up - but it turned out that she thought she might have stitched my cervix into the lip of the wound. She came in on her day off to tell me the next day, and again tried to do an internal to tell if that had happened. I was hysterical, it was awful. It turned out that she hadn't. My scar took 4 months to heal though, and that is why I want a homebirth next time!

Thanks for the link DobbyMOO. I will certainly check it out.

Tinkjon - forgot to say - best of luck, and if you do go into labour early take the advice of these ladies and have it written into your birth plan that you don't want one. If I had really realised it wasn't obligatory (not risky not to have one) I would have spared myself a lot of worry.