Sometimes your labour will need a little bit of help to get it started and this is called inducing. You might be induced if your labour’s gone past its due date. This is normally around 41 or 42 weeks.
Your labour might also be induced if there are any medical concerns such as diabetes, kidney disease or pre-eclampsia. Sometimes your labour might need inducing if your waters have broken and you haven’t gone into labour in a certain amount of time. This is to help prevent any infection to you or your baby.
Most inductions start with a sweep. A sweep is where the midwife will do an internal examination and stretch the cervix pulling them away from the membranes and this can help to stimulate contractions. A sweep might be uncomfortable and your midwife might need to give you more than one sweep to get the labour going.
Another way of inducing is with a prostaglandin gel. This can be inserted into the vagina and that can help to get the contractions going. They’ll leave you for six hours and wait to see if the labour starts. If the labour doesn’t start they can give another load of prostaglandin gel. They’ll monitor the baby throughout this process and monitor how your contractions are coming and how the two are coping with each other.
If that doesn’t work they can give you a hormone drip called syntocinon. This helps the body to contract and the cervix to dilate. They start it off quite slowly and then increase the rate until you’re having a good four contractions in 10 minutes.
About video: Midwife Miriam Martin describes what an induction is and what is involved.
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