The Mule

On average around 20% of UK women have their labours induced, some for medical reasons, others because they are 'post dates', that is, they have gone a certain number of days past their EDD (Estimated Due Date). How many days your care providers will 'let you' go past your EDD before pressuring for induction varies from trust to trust, but often women find that conversations about induction start on or even before their EDD, with 'sweeps' being routinely offered to encourage labour to start, and difficult to navigate meetings arranged with Obstetricians in which women are talked to about 'increasing risk'. Getting to the bottom of the actual reality of the risk of going past 41 or 42 weeks is tricky, mostly because so many women don't actually get this far. Midwife Thinking has a great article here about the balance of risks a woman contemplating agreeing to induction must consider. Many women feel under enormous pressure once the conversations...

This week on the blog I'm running a Birth Story Special.  Yesterday I published Michelle's story , of a planned home birth that ended in an emergency caesarian. Today I have decided to share the story of my own first birth, also a planned home birth, that evolved into a hospital induction and forceps delivery.   NICE guidelines  state that induction is likely to lead to a labour that is more painful, and more likely to end in epidural, instrumental delivery or caesarian. And yet i n the UK today around 20% of births are induced.  Many women find that they are coming under pressure to accept induction from around 40 weeks, and often there are confusing messages regarding the safety of continuing the pregnancy beyond their due date.  Of course, there is not a great deal of hard evidence about what happens if women are left to go into labour spontaneously beyond  41 or even 42 weeks, as most women are not 'allowed' or encouraged to get this far. Many wom...

This time three years ago, my first baby was just a few days old.  And I can't help but recall the story, now worn thin with telling, of how she was born eighteen days past her 'due date'. Expected on the 21st December, it was to be a long and more than usually stressful festive season, as the days and nights of waiting wore on.  At a time of year when I was more inclined towards numbing myself with a mixture of socially acceptable 11am sherry drinking and, if that failed, a spot of monstrous overeating, I found myself nearly ten months pregnant and able to do neither.  Ladies and gentlemen, this was The Christmas I Cried.   When not lying on the sofa surrounded by used tissues, I spent my time eating pineapples, running up and down the stairs, going for bumpy car rides, having acupuncture, and drinking large amounts of castor oil, which, for those of you who are curious, tastes like melted tea lights, and makes you shit through the eye of a needle.  Th...