So what would happen if your labour 'stalled' and you ^didnt^ have drugs to make your contractions restart/get stronger?

[guiltyandfedup]

I am really interested to know, either from peoples personal experience or midwives perspectives.

I laboured 'naturally' until 8cm with ds1 but then my contractions became weak/erratic (according to the montitor thinumy!) They felt just as painful as before!

After refusing the drip (is it called sytocinin?) for hours and hours as I knew it would take the pain onto a different level, I eventually accepted it. After this I could no longer cope with the pain and had an epidural. Ds was born with no assistance about 2 hours later with drip turned up to 'maximum flow!'.

I was not and am not 'dissatisfied' about any aspect of DS birth, we both came out of it happy and healthy, but as I am due to give bith again in 4 months I have been wondering a lot about what would have happened if I had just carried on without the drip. has anyone else experienced this?

I don't know as I had the drip! Even with that I pushed for 3 hours...

I guess a few possibilities - you would have had a baby at some point with no problems but maybe quite a few hours after you otherwise had him.

As above but as labour had been longer your DS may have got more distressed/tired - if distress was picked up on and not 10cm you may have had an emergency lscs.

As above but a longer second stage of labour increases your risk of bleeding badly after giving birth.

Hi stripey, my labour was 16 hours from 4 cm to 10cm (and had been contracting for 20 hours before this!!).

Interesting what you say about the baby possibly getting more distressed/tired, I thought that the drip led to an increased chance of fetal distress. I suppose it is all relative.

I suppose I just wonder if I would have been one of thise women who would have died in ye olden days, if my body is maybe not naturally inclined to get a babay out under its own steam!

I doubt you'd have died as it tended to be women with an obstructed labour who died. So where the baby was in such an odd position that they weren't going to come out. As your DS did come out then that wouldn't have been the case.

With my first I was 40+10 and had about 2 days of pre-labour niggling and pain then about 4 hours of regular painful contractions. I got to 4cm but then stalled.

Nothing happened for an hour, I was at home so the MW had me marching up and down the stairs trying to get things going, still nothing. In the end she broke my waters. There was meconium present, so we had to transfer to hosptial. Once the waters went contractions were instantly very painful and productive. dd1 was born about 3 horus later after no further intervention.

For my second labour I'd been having backache, went to be at 12 midnight, got up at 12.30 having decided it was labour, had dd2 in pool at 2.50am so second labour much easier, no hanging about like first time.

3rd and 4tyh were also both fairly straighforward, but #2 was the best hopefully your second will be easy too good luck!