Are contractions more painful after the oxytocin drip?

[Keepingbusyeating]

I’m pregnant with my second and with my first I was induced and had the oxytocin drip and an epidural with ended up failing on one side after a few hours. I am scared of experiencing that level of pain again (probably about 1 hour before the pushing stage so fairly far on).

If anyone’s experienced both, is it fair to say the contractions are more intense after the drip? Or is that how they’d feel if I wasn’t to have the drip this time?

I've never heard epidurals being associated with tears. There's an association with forceps and forceps cause tears, yeah.

You don't have to "topup" an epidural when nearing delivery if you want increased awareness of the pressure

The midwives should be telling the mum to pant and brewthe/holding the perineum during delivery

I had the drip first time and natural 2nd. No pain relief with either. Ime i wouldn't say the contractions were more painful with the drip but it just becomes intense very quickly where your body kind of builds up to it naturally without it. However my experience with the drip wasn't bad, I think it's different for everyone.

I have had 3 and had the drip every single time !! The 3rd one though was the only one I actually managed to get an epidural ( 27 years ago) and the difference was chalk and cheese- my 1st was by far the worse, early 80s and both the drip and forceps

I also think the drip depends very much on how ready your body is. If you're already in labour and have had contractions and just need speeding up then I think it's not too much different to natural labour. I think if you get the drip to be induced from no signs of labour then it's a different thing all together

My midwife said that studies have consistently shown that the drip does make contractions more painful.

Certainly seemed to for me.

Whilst you are not wrong on either of those statements, I was 30hrs into a hard labour and not really in a position to recall that information!! (My midwife not only didn’t encourage me to pant, but was hitting the top up button herself because I was in distress despite the epidural… and yes, that was bought up to the consultant too.)

But regardless, to circle back round. I did not find the induction worked for me. Won’t be having another one.