What if I don’t want to be induced?

Girl, if you don’t want it, you don’t have to do it.

Now obviously there’s more to it than that. Here are some facts.

When you reach about 41 weeks, induction for being “overdue” will likely be mentioned/suggested.

You may feel as though you don’t get much of a say. But as with all medical procedures, you absolutely do.

What we know about induction of labor:
- Women who are induced are at greater risk of complications like uterine rupture, & uterine tachysystole (when your uterus contracts too much because of the medication, this can be dangerous for baby).
- There’s more risk of interventions like unplanned/unwanted caesareans.
- Women also report inducing labor makes the labor itself more painful, and research shows epidural use is greater in women who were induced.

If you do choose to decline the offer for induction, your hospital may then offer you some additional monitoring & testing in the time during your wait for your labor to spontaneously start. This is called “expectant management”.

Expectant management generally includes a growth scan (which looks at Bub’s growth, the fluid levels + placental blood flow) somewhere around 40+10, and regular CTG monitoring.

It’s important to remember:
- These growth scans show a 15% inaccuracy.
- CTG monitoring only provides a tiny snapshot of the baby’s wellbeing (e.g. let’s say the monitoring is happening for 1 hour, twice a week, we don’t know what’s happening in the other 166 hours of the week).
- The NICE guidance published in 2021 states that “adverse effects on the baby (including stillbirth) can not be predicted reliably, or prevented even with monitoring.”

Now that doesn’t mean there’s no place for monitoring.

But these interventions are usually not great for women who are otherwise healthy & have low-risk pregnancies. It is important to consider the cold hard facts when being offered (and, unfortunately, sometimes pressured) into inductions/tests like this, & decide what you feel comfortable with.

We know labor progresses with oxytocin. So we want you feeling calm, not stressed. So if you’re torn about how to proceed, ask yourself “will the extra scans/monitoring make me feel calmer, or more stressed?”. Your answer to that question will help you decide what’s right for you.

Angie,

your Guardian Doula. x