If you are induced (labor has to be started artificially) some of the methods may be used to speed up labor if it is going slowly. |
Labor may be induced if:
- It is more than a day past the baby's due date, and he shows signs of being distress or the placenta starts to fail and has matured to grade III.
- You have high blood pressure or condition that puts you or the baby at risk.
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Induction is always planned in advance, and you will probably be asked to go into hospital the night before. Labor may be induced in three ways.
- Inserting a pessary or a tablet into the vagina containing a hormone that softens the cervix. This is done in the evening or very early morning. You may go in labor within an hour or so, but the pessary is not usually very effective on its own in a first pregnancy.
- Breaking your waters. If labor still has not started within 8-12 hours, the doctor makes a small hole in the bag of waters surroundings the baby. Most women don't feel any pain. Contractions nearly always start soon afterwards.
- Giving a drip of oxytocin. The dosage is regulated and the patient monitored very closely by having regular monitoring.
The tablet is preferable, as you avoid having your waters broken and can move around freely. With the drip especially, your contractions may be stronger and more painful, with shorter intervals between them, than in labor that has started naturally. Mobility is restricted. Sometimes both the procedures used together. First the tablet and then the drip.
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