Membrane sweep - what's it like?

[whitie]

I'm over my due date by a day now and have a midwife appointment tomorrow where I'm sure she'll talk to me about booking an induction. Someone said that I might be offered a membrane sweep first and I'd love to hear what it's like before I answer tomorrow. I've read about it and it sounds uncomfortable in a similar way to a smear test, is that right? The book said it can cause bleeding and irrregular painful contrations that lead to nothing, have any of you had that? I would love to hear your experiences.

Best of luck whitie - as I said, I found the reassurance from MN an absolute godsend before mine. I reckon if all I'd heard was the poor girl in the bed next to me having hers, I would have moved faster than at any other time during pregnancy - and straight towards the exit!

Bump for twiga!

It's uncomfortable. Feels like someone is trying to push their hand in as far as it will go. I took the view that it wasn't the worst thing I was going to feel in the next 48 hours!

Cheers Rachey - just found this! Will go and read from beginning

One word: OUCH!

Things now as clear as mud ! I guess uncomfortable is to be expected - still not sure from what I've read wether to go for it or not - suspect my worry about being induced may just sway things, would rather a bit of discomfort than drip etc later. Anyone able to come up with a convincing pros/cons list?

Yeah, I've got one twiga. Sorry to do this but, but there was a thread on here a while ago and at the end the general consensus was that sweeps are more painful for people who aren't on the verge of labour anyway AND if you aren't just about ready to go into labour yourself they often don't work (as in my case).

It isn't going to harm you or baby to have one. But be prepared that "a bit uncomfortable" might just be a euphamism for "bloody f*ING PAINFUL"

Link Uwila? Sorry being lazy about searching archives as checking this whilst cooking dinner!

sorry twiga, I don't know where it is. I typed that from memory. you'll have to do a search. Maybe someone else should cook dinner?!?

my 2p worth is: do it before you get induced. But don't bother otherwise. If you're going to go into labour, you'll go into labour anyway. But worth trying what you can before induction.

I went in with a false alarm 5 days before dd was born adn the mw gave me a sweep - to be honest I didn;t even notice
I was only 38 weeks and dd came 5 days later