Tell me about sweeps please

[micegg]

I am being a bit premature with this as I am not quite 36 weeks but the MW said at my last appointent that she would do a sweep at my 40 week appointment. I am hoping I wont get that far as I am already beginning to lose the will to live and have become the bitch troll from hell to live with due to coping with a toddler and huge bump. But if I do I want to know what I am letting myself in for. I was under the impression that a sweep was used when you are overdue so I was going to refuse it at the 40 week appointment. Is this normal practice to offer a sweep on the due date rather than you are actually late? Does anyone know how likely it is to work?How painful is it? Seems a bit daft to ask that when its clearly far less painful than childbirth!

it is often normal practice to do a sweep at this stage but IMO should NOT be
as you say, you are not overdue at this point, and if you were in, say, France, your due date would be at 41 weeks anyway, so to start fretting about sweeps etc at this point seems crazy to me

so you are perfectly within your rights to decline

having said that, when I was 40 +9 I had a sweep and I did start labour the next day
I didn't find it that awful or painful, although other people have said they found it very unpleasant

second babies are less likely to be overdue I think, so keep cheerful if you can and don't feel pressured into this if you don't want it!

Thanks. DC1 was born on her due date. Last appointment with MW baby was 3/5ths engaged and since then I have felt lots of pushing on what feels like my cervix so really hope its early. Just wanted to be armed with info as the MW concerned is a bit bolshy - told me she cant see the point of home births and when i asked if i could look round the delivery suite she said no because they are too busy and responded "good for them" when i said the last hospital i went to had done this . As you can tell I am just loving this woman. Thankfully she wont be there for the delivery.

I had my first sweep with ds at 40 +7 weeks and the second one at 40 + 9, had ds at 40 + 13. I think it's really odd to offer a sweep on your due date, when you could go into labour the very next day. Having said that I agree with Franny that it wasn't a big deal ,just like a smear test tbh

I had a sweep - didn't do a thing but one thing I would advise is to check out the mw or consultant's hands before agreeing to it - long thin fingers - go for it, if they have short fat fingers - forget it

I had a sweep with my dd, sweep at 3pm, dd born next day at 8.40am. It worked for me, I was 6 days late and it was my 2nd baby. When I had my sweep I was already 3cm dilated and my cervix was "favourable".
DD came so quickly she was born in the car!
I wouldn't want to have a sweep though until I was overdue, you don't have to have one, speak with your mw and good luck

a sweep worked for me. i was desperate to have one however, and was of the opinion they [mws] would happily not give it if you didn't want one...

yes, like a smear test. didn't work for me.

you absolutely can say no, you don't want one.

i had mine on the monday (late av) - was 40+2. had baby wednesday early morning. it did not hurt at all. i was expecting it to feel like a smear test but felt more like inserting a tampon (sorry if tmi).

Jammi, you did ask - they insert their hand (dont worry they use lots of lube) and literally sweep the cervix. I presume this stimulates the uterus in some way. I had it done, didn't hurt at all. I had two MW come to my home to do it, so there i was legs akimbo on the bed with two young MWs, DP made his excuses and left the room. It was only when they left that DP returned with a sheepish grin on his face - we had left some fluffy hand cuffs on the foot of the bed