foley catheter for induction anyone?

[hex]

has anyone had experience of using a foley catheter for induction? What happened and did it hurt? I'm booked in for induction in a couple of days and because I'm VBAC, they are reluctant to use P-gel but will use the catheter. Any accounts at all gratefully received!

i thought a foley catheter was for urine output?

just had a look in my text books and on the net, and apart from one site that tell you about deviant catheter play!!!!! the rest, including textbooks say that a foley catheter is used to allow the monitoring of urine output.
i have used these in practice, for women who have had an epidural and can not feel the need to pass urine and rarely for a woman who is making slow progress in labour and cannot pass urine so a foley catheter would be inserted to drain urine and then removed, thus emptying the bladder which could be an obstruction to baby moving down and out.
insertion of a catheter is not painful, it can be a strange feeling, but shouldn't hurt.

if anyone else has been induced using a foley catheter i would be interested to hear how.
thanks

Foley catheters can be used for induction. It is placed into the cervix and the balloon inflated to keep it in place. A prostin solution is then passed into the cervix via a syringe pump to make it dilate. When the cervix has dilated enough to break the waters, the balloon falls out.
It is not painful to have the catheter inserted - I actually had this done with my third baby (14 years ago). However, it immediately fell out when the balloon was inflated so I didn't need the prostin.

I haven't seen it done for a number of years, we just use the gel. We do sometimes give gel to previous C/S women, depending on findings at examination.

I can see the logic of why they want to do it that way. Prostin is introduced in a controlled way and just enough is given to get the result. Once gel is given, you cannot take it back out if it causes very frequent painful contractions.

How many weeks are you? Why are you being induced?

hex - hope what mears has said helps, its cleared up exactly whats done for me and also explains why i had not heard of it/ seen it done!

good luck for your impending birth, i'm sure that all will go well.

thanks for the help
I'll be 42 weeks when I have it done (tomorrow). I've found a bit of information (medical publications on the WWW) which show comparative studies between p-gel and foley catheter so I guess they have will have not filled the balloon with a gel solution since they are comparing one with the other (if you wld like the refs, I can give them to you).
I think the issue with me is that my cervix is still firm, posterior and thick, and in my last induction (in the UK), prostin gel didn't do anything. In fact, failed induction was why it ended up in a c-section. Here in Australia, they are very wary of inducing VBAC mothers with gel (scared of being sued fo possible uterine rupture I think).

Anyway, I shall post with my experience when I'm back home from hospital.

hex