How can you induce a woman to go into labor, and why would a doctor induce someone instead of just letting them give birth whenever it happens naturally?
In: Biology
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I was induced at 41.5 weeks. It was either induction or having to do fetal stress test every day to make sure my baby was still healthy.
I was told I couldn’t eat or drink anything the night before in case they had to do a cesarean section. I got to the hospital at 7 am, was induced by 8 am, started vomiting stomach acid (empty stomach) at 8:30 am bc that’s a side effect of pitocin. At 9:15 the first contractions hit and I start screaming. I mean biting the pillow, wailing, crying, top of my lungs, raw-throated screaming. In most natural childbirths, contractions start relatively mildly – and become stronger and more painful as the process continues, but with a chemically induced birth, they start suddenly & at full strength. When I wasn’t wracked by spasms of pain, I was shivering uncontrollably. 4 blankets later I still can’t stop shivering. At 11 I finally agree to an epidural after trying all the other painkillers they offered. It takes 4 nurses to hold me still enough for the long, wide needle to be inserted right next to my spinal column to deliver a dose of anesthetic. If I move an inch, the needle could go into my spine, severing my spinal cord and leaving me paralyzed. I went limp almost instantly.
I spent the rest of the day in drowsy peace. At around 5 pm the nurse entered the room and stuck a very long tool up through my cervix and broke the amniotic sac surrounding my son and I began watching the second of a two-part episode of Batman: The Animated Series that I was completely engrossed in. With 7 minutes left in the show,p the doctor walks in & announces that it’s time & now I’m mad cause I was watching that & if this baby had waited this long, he could wait 7 minutes longer.
The nurse turns off the TV, the doctor slices through my body so the baby can slide out easier, but he just tore through what hadn’t been cut open. The doctor is yelling, the nurses are yelling, I’m yelling, then the baby’s yelling. The doctor goes to sew me back together & I raise up off the bed by a foot and a half.
Me: Ow!
Doctor: That did not hurt you. ( English wasn’t his first language)
Me: Yes it did, OW.
Doctor: Stop jumping, I am not hurting you.
Me: Stop doing that, it hurts!
Doctor: Is it pressure or is it pain? Pressure or pain?
Me: If I stick my thumbs in your eyeballs & squeeze your skull like a goddamn melon, it’ll be pressure that is painful.
He pinches my ass with the forceps they used to pull out the amniotic sac & when I screech, he says “Oh, the epidural must’ve worn off.” Then he tells me he’s going to put n an extra stitch called The Lover’s Knot which will help “tighten everything up a little quicker”. But that’s a nightmare ride for another day.
You’re getting a bunch of good medical answers but I think it’s also important to point out that your question seems to be predicated on the idea something happening naturally is “better.” This is a logical fallacy known as the naturalistic fallacy. Things that are natural are not necessarily better, and assuming they are is both bad logic and potentially dangerous.
Diseases and parasites are natural. The medicines that let us live health lives free of them are not. Air conditioning and central heating are not natural, but they save lives every year when weather becomes extreme. Nature is not all good. It has lots of awful and painful things associated with it. Assuming natural things are better will lead you to bad conclusions, as evidenced by all the great answers in this thread.
In very rural areas planning the delivery is often required. Waiting for a natural labor to start, and then driving 40 miles to a hospital is problematic (at best) . So planning and inducing can sometimes be the only option
There’s a lot of reasons and a lot of ways.
Some are medical and some are at home.
Some people are just all done being pregnant. It’s too detrimental to the mental of physical health and it’s time for baby to arrive. Baby could be in distress. The water broke and labor hasn’t started naturally and the risk if infection is too high. You’ve been pregnant over 40 weeks, or over 42 weeks which is generally considered overdue.
Castor oil, spicy foods, walking, sex, and other methods can work but aren’t reliable.
More medical methods involve Foley bulbs physically opening the cervix, or pitocin and other drugs used to trick your body into having contractions. Sweeping of the membranes or artificial rupture of the amniotic sack can start off labor.
Doctors give drugs (often pictocin but im sure there’s other options) it speeds up the uterine contractions and dilation of the cervix for the baby to pass through.
Inductions are done for many reasons. The baby is more than 2 weeks late. (The bulk of the birth weight is put on in the final weeks. Waiting too long increases the potential the baby will be too big or mom too small. Increasing the risks/rates of vaginal tears or emergency c sections)
Water broke more than 24 hours ago (increasing risk of infection)
Birthing stalled out and hasn’t continued to progress.
Then there’s more superficial reasons like but I want my baby to have THIS birthrate! Or I’ve worked a 15 hour shift and this baby is coming because I’m going home.
Either
1 there is a risk to the baby (compression of the umbilical cord, inadequate fetal oxygenation, or other emergency)
2 OR the mother is ‘failing to progress.’ Bodies are not perfect, and sometimes the body doesn’t continue or start labor. The risk for the baby and mother increase the longer the baby stays in there after roughly 39 weeks.
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