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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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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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