I need a big doula/midwife hug here because I had a real piss off of this week.
I always have a big talk with my clients about the risk of unneccesary induction and the risks of being overdue and what ones options are etc.
It seems they always get pressured into it somehow and I always support their decision whatever it is, but on the inside I cringe.
Why? I think that unneccesary induction is the single worst thing that we are doing to women giving birth today, and probably the greatest cause of caesarean section.
So I have had three births almost in a row (two this week and one a month ago)where the labour and birth has been almost exactly the same.
All three; extremely healthy pregnancies, great results on non-stress tests, and ultrasounds. No problems at all whatsoever. The most recent of them had alleged mild gestational diabetes but never had a blood sugar problem once in her pregnancy after the GTT.
All of them had refused induction at least once or put it off knowing it was not what they wanted but all eventually got pushed scared into it, despite the very apparent health of their babies. The most recent was only three days past her due date.
The first two were cervadil inductions and labour progressed slowly but surely and coped up until about 8 cms and at least 12 hrs without epidural(not an easy feat with induction!), the last one was not cervadil as her cervix was pretty ripe when they started the induction. All of them reached full dilation a couple hours after their epidurals and every single one of them the babys were very high. So we waited and waited for a couple hours and even turned off the epidurals and had women move into different positions to coax the baby down. And each time the doctor would come in and examen and the baby would still be at 0 or higher no progress hour after hour, and the doctor would eventually go on about how dangerous it is to be fully dilated for more than one or two hours without giving birth(wtf?) and how they had one hour to push their baby out or a c-section. Soo we would start pushing. We would try squatting, all fours, on the side, lithomy, the whole bit, strong great pushes from these amazing women who didnt complain once, and the babies wouldnt come down a centimeter. We would put off the doctors and keep trying and after hours and hours of pushing it was obvious, each time that the baby was not going to come down.
Each time the baby was malpositioned, the first two were posterior and the last was asynclitic(you could see the swelling on one side of the head).
Like the babies werent ready to come and we had to force it and they just wouldnt go into position.
Each woman was so devistated at having to have a caesarean most after 24 hours of hard active labour and many hours of pushing. Each time I got progressively more frustrated.
This is bad medicine, its bad practice. Even one of the nurses made the comment, 'induction equals caesarean'.
None of these women had any indication for induction and all of them had been going for natural births. All of them tried to refuse but got scared into it each time, and all of them regretted it after.
So sad. So frustrating. We all did our best but nothing was going to bring those babies, who werent ready, out against their will.
I always have a big talk with my clients about the risk of unneccesary induction and the risks of being overdue and what ones options are etc.
It seems they always get pressured into it somehow and I always support their decision whatever it is, but on the inside I cringe.
Why? I think that unneccesary induction is the single worst thing that we are doing to women giving birth today, and probably the greatest cause of caesarean section.
So I have had three births almost in a row (two this week and one a month ago)where the labour and birth has been almost exactly the same.
All three; extremely healthy pregnancies, great results on non-stress tests, and ultrasounds. No problems at all whatsoever. The most recent of them had alleged mild gestational diabetes but never had a blood sugar problem once in her pregnancy after the GTT.
All of them had refused induction at least once or put it off knowing it was not what they wanted but all eventually got pushed scared into it, despite the very apparent health of their babies. The most recent was only three days past her due date.
The first two were cervadil inductions and labour progressed slowly but surely and coped up until about 8 cms and at least 12 hrs without epidural(not an easy feat with induction!), the last one was not cervadil as her cervix was pretty ripe when they started the induction. All of them reached full dilation a couple hours after their epidurals and every single one of them the babys were very high. So we waited and waited for a couple hours and even turned off the epidurals and had women move into different positions to coax the baby down. And each time the doctor would come in and examen and the baby would still be at 0 or higher no progress hour after hour, and the doctor would eventually go on about how dangerous it is to be fully dilated for more than one or two hours without giving birth(wtf?) and how they had one hour to push their baby out or a c-section. Soo we would start pushing. We would try squatting, all fours, on the side, lithomy, the whole bit, strong great pushes from these amazing women who didnt complain once, and the babies wouldnt come down a centimeter. We would put off the doctors and keep trying and after hours and hours of pushing it was obvious, each time that the baby was not going to come down.
Each time the baby was malpositioned, the first two were posterior and the last was asynclitic(you could see the swelling on one side of the head).
Like the babies werent ready to come and we had to force it and they just wouldnt go into position.
Each woman was so devistated at having to have a caesarean most after 24 hours of hard active labour and many hours of pushing. Each time I got progressively more frustrated.
This is bad medicine, its bad practice. Even one of the nurses made the comment, 'induction equals caesarean'.
None of these women had any indication for induction and all of them had been going for natural births. All of them tried to refuse but got scared into it each time, and all of them regretted it after.
So sad. So frustrating. We all did our best but nothing was going to bring those babies, who werent ready, out against their will.