Ready to Naturally Induce

[SquirelNutkin]

So, I am a week over due,
and tmorrow I see my midwife to discuss herbal/natrual inductions.
She will let me go past 42 weeks if a sonogram looks OK- BUT-
The baby seems to be almost 9 pounds- as is typical in my family and from my last birth- So I am ready to take some steps to induction.

What is your experience with herbs/ natural rememdies?

Any advice would be great,'
thanks
b

[luvinlivin]

Re: Ready to Naturally Induce

Originally posted by SquirelNutkin
So, I am a week over due,
and tmorrow I see my midwife to discuss herbal/natrual inductions.
She will let me go past 42 weeks if a sonogram looks OK- BUT-
The baby seems to be almost 9 pounds- as is typical in my family and from my last birth- So I am ready to take some steps to induction.

What is your experience with herbs/ natural rememdies?

Any advice would be great,'
thanks
b

Most likely, this is not what you want to hear but you asked for 'any advice' so here goes:

I say wait for your baby to come out when he/she initiates (b/c they start the process, y'know) labor to be born.

Due dates are estimates. At best. You may be a week overdue or not. No one can say for sure. And the expectation that there is a due date different than the one set by your baby is wrong, IMO.

Sonograms vary by up to two pounds. No sonologist can say what your baby weighs in utero without a caveat of that variation. No one will know what your baby weighs until he/she is born.

'Natural' induction can really wreck havoc with your labor and put your baby into premature labor.

One final comment: the power dynamics inherent in 'my midwife will LET ME' (my emphasis placed here) are potentially very dangerous for your birth experience. Your baby is not asking your midwife for permission to be born and IMO, you shouldn't let her dictate crucial components of your labor and birth.


Like i said, I would bet this isn't what you want to hear but I am offering it in the hopes you will have a safe, baby-induced labor and birth experience.

[WriterMama]

*

[cottonwood]

Here's some cautionary info about blue cohosh and castor oil (scroll down to "Online Article"):

http://web.uvic.ca/~rachelw/articles.htm

I haven't heard anything bad about EPO, though the consensus seems to be that it won't start labor that isn't already on the verge of happening. I would imagine it's the same with sex and orgasm. I have heard some women sing the praises of their chiropractors though! And I know also that the mind can hold things up -- relax, pamper yourself, meditate, get (and ask for) some good loving and attention, and think about how lovely it's going to be to give birth to and hold your baby.

Basically, what it comes down to for me is that if the baby is ready to come, I don't need it, and if the baby isn't ready to come, I don't need it. I do sympathize with anyone who has a care provider who will not or cannot allow a client to go past 42 weeks without transfer to the hospital. Choice, phooey! There is no true choice in these situations, there's only coercion.

I'm sorry I don't have any advice except to next time lie about your date of conception if you don't want to risk having to go the hospital to give birth for no good reason at all.

[SquirelNutkin]

luvlivin-
No offense here.
I dont know what I will do, honestly.
I was laready swayed by the baby making its own choice- as well as considering the possibilities of herbal inductions.
Honestly, I dont know that much about herbal inductions, so this was really a fact finding mission.
"she will let me go" in response of the midwife- Well, she wwont transfer me to a hospital past 42 weeks if it isnt my choice- somethign that wouldnt have occured if I was in Illnios, and sounds like Florida too. So I dont really consider it a power issue with my midwife- as much as a power issue with the state.
My concern about weight was more my past pregnancy (8 lbs, 12 ounces, and this one is obviously more) and my mothers 4 pregnancies- all over 9 pounds. I havent had a sonogram yet, and I assumed the real thing they were checking for was that there was enough fluid and the baby looked healthy.Frankly, I worry about the weight affecting my labor.
I think I am gonna spend some mmore time meditating. I do feel like this baby is waiting, and so I need to figure out why.

Anyhow, still need to spend some time on the website you listed sweetwater.

Thansk all,
b

[luvinlivin]

Squirel, FWIW, sex would give you natural prostaglandins (as opposed to the pig/horse version in a hospital to ripen the cervix) so sometimes that can kick start some labor.

I'd personally never take a cohosh, even in menopause, but that's me.

I'd also never take castor oil - I had diaherrea in labor as my natural prostaglandins were stimulated into action. I wouldn't want something else giving my body a run...bad pun.

I agree with sweetwater that EPO is usually 'safe' and can be used orally or vaginally to soften the cervix.

I'm glad your midwife won't transfer you...

I always feel that moms can birth their babies no matter what their weight but that's just me. My family's babies run large (as Scandanavians tend to) - the 10-12 lbs. range and they've all been birthing vaginally with very short labors (under 6 hours) and no abdominal surgeries.

Best to you and I'm sure the waiting is very hard!! Good luck whatever your decision!!

[cottonwood]

If babies in your family tend to run large, then that's normal for you, I'd wager, and shouldn't be a problem at all. I love Leilah McCracken's stories at birthlove.com -- she's not tall or amazon-like but still managed to give birth to several rather large babies with no problem. I really believe that for most women it's a mental-hindrance sort of thing, as in, we've been led to believe that anything over 8 lb. is abnormally huge and will be hard or impossible to pass through the birth canal. Which I think is absurd. When obstetrics was becoming the common approach to birth earlier this past century, women were often malnourished and while that may have produced small babies, it also produced rickets which made it nearly impossible to pass babies of any size through the pelvis. Times have changed, but myths and traditions remain.

You probably also know that when in a reclining position, the pelvis collapses in birth, so that the pelvic volume that the baby has to pass through is reduced by about a third. I bet if you squat or kneel and ease the baby out rather than push forcibly, that you'll be just fine.

[lilyka]

Intresting about Scandinavian babies being big. DH and his brother were the smallest babies in his family and that is only because they were twins. Still large according to any comparison weighing in at 7 1/2 and 8 1/2 pounds. Carrying that much baby etc. . gives respect for that woman no matter what stupid things she tends to say DD were also big.

As for induction (sorry to go off topic) I used black and blue cohosh. I forget which does which but one ripens the cervix and one starts contractions. I got the amounts from "Wise Woman Herbal". I also did a lot of nipple stimulation (as in put in a movie and started twisting and didn't really stop until I hit trasition). Castor oil didn't work but it did give me a good thorough cleansing and made me feel better for the next few days. I took a lot less than recommended too.

This time I won't be allowed (according to the clinics procedures) to go overdue (more than 14 days) and still use my midwife and quite honestly I have no desire to. She uses less invasive procedures to start labor than drugs and says she rarely has to use drugs to augment labor.

[phoebekate]

I would never take castor oil and I don' thtink the blue/black cohosh are common in australia. But what I did find was that when my braxton hicks felt just a little different I thought to myself "hmm maybe sex would speed this up" and I think it did... 3 nights worth of sex that is :-). I had three days of prelabour, intense prelabour the morning of the day she was born and then 5 hours of real labour from waters breaking to birth. Sex had a really noticable effect for me and I do think that DD may have come anywhere from 2 to 5 days later without it. Which wouldn't have mattered to me as she came at 39.5 weeks, but if I had a chemical induction or transfer to another carer looming then I would be having a LOT of sex myself.... hahaha. I was also planning to try accupuncture if I went overdue enough to be causing my midwife problems.

[mrzmeg]

I encourage you to be skeptical of anything that claims to induce labor...
I am two and a half weeks overdue right now and have been having prelabor symptoms since July 28. My MW and I expected the baby early, so when my due date came and went, I tried many things---walking, stairs, acupuncture, acupressure, sex, nipple stim. Everything made contractions stronger and regular, nothing really started labor.
I have been taking EPO since last week and will try the cohoshes if we make it to next week without a baby.
At least with my little one, it looks like he's not coming out til he's good and ready. And I'm pretty much OK with that now.
Good luck to you .