Unfavourable cervix at 41w sweep

[woollycat]

This is my first pregnancy and I had a sweep at 41w on Thursday and was told my cervix was completely unfavourable. I would really like to avoid an induction, but also wary of going much further than 42w. I have another sweep booked tomorrow (41+3) so we'll see how that goes, but I guess I am looking for positive stories from first time mums who had an unfavourable cervix and then still went into labour naturally within a few days. Also worth noting that I don't really have any symptoms either (like period type pains, etc). Thanks!

Mine was unfavourable from the first sweep
But the second worked! Baby born less than 24 hours later

I was induced, but I was told that my Bishop's score was 3, 'being generous'. In other words, completely unfavourable. I had a 4 hour labour once induced, that surprised them so much that they didn't think I was in labour, and they had to show me the toco trace and say 'and at this point, how did you feel...?' so they could write up my notes.

@Isadora2007 how many weeks were you at first and second sweeps?

Ummm. I think 40 plus 5 and Then 41 plus 1 on the second As she was 9 days late...

Sex after sweep helps too- as does nipple stimulation. So a good session involving boob foreplay and a decent orgasm each is a good idea if you can summon up the energy! 😊

I had unfavourable cervix at 8 days over - couldn't even do a sweep, notes said "os closed posterior"

Waters broke 2 days later and I was 4cm on arrival at hospital (no contractions; had to be induced in the end).

There is a school of thought which says that sweeps don’t do anything that your body isn’t going to do anyway, so you can have a sweep and then go in to labour but there’s a good chance you will anyway.

I was same as you and ended up with several sweeps doing nothing but being painful. My advice would be to thoroughly research the induction process in case it does happen, what are you happy to have done vs not? What does your trust allow? My trust allowed a pessary induction as an out patient so you could go home and if it that worked then you could progress like a “normal” labour and use the birth pool etc.

Not all inductions are bad, lots of stories on here about them being the same as natural labour. Good luck!

Thanks everyone! I am going for a second sweep today (41+3), will see if anything has progressed but I will try and not get too discouraged if not.