Is this right or wrong........???

[catherine]

I had to be induced with both of my babies, but not before Ihad gone 2 weeks beyond my due date. Each of the doctors that I had did not think it was a good idea to induce before that point. They both thought that a baby comes out when it is ready and if there is no apparent problem it is best to leave it to nature.

 

[mamamia]

This same thing just happened to my sister. Her due date was July 7th and everything was fine. She had a sonogram every month because that's was just the Dr.'s policy - they did it in the office. This was her 4th (she's 36 yrs. old). She said the Dr. decided he wanted to induce her because with her last one her labor was less than 3 hrs. and this Dr. says that he's afraid she wouldn't make it to the hospital on time - the hospital is all of 10 minutes from her house!! I was really nervous about this because I feel when its the right time, it's the right time. They had her going in every 3 days or so to see if it was the right time and then suddenly they just decided to induce. Her labor was much longer and harder with this one. She was in labor for over 12 hours - which for her is long, even with her first, her labor was about 5 hours or so. There was no sign of anything going wrong , so I'm still not sure why they did this. The only thing I could think of for inducing is that my sister was carrying low the whole entire pregnancy and she was having a hard time getting around and maybe they were trying to make it easier for her. Luckily the baby is healthy. She wound up having it June 27th (I think it was 9 days early). The baby weighed 8 lbs/8 oz and was 21" long so it was a decent size

 

[floridaminnie]

They both thought that a baby comes out when it is ready and if there is no apparent problem it is best to leave it to nature.

I second that.

 

[CamColt]

If the baby weighed 6 lbs a few weeks ago, maybe they dont want it to get too big? My sister went almost 2 weeks past her due date. When her water finally broke she was in labor for 24 hours. My niece was NOT coming out. Finally they had to do a C-section and then they found out why the baby wasnt budging...she weighed 11lb 2 oz!

 

[Kermit]

I'm pretty sure that the latest recomendations from ACOG (American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology) say that moms should only be induced for medical reasons. Personally, I wouldn't be induced unless the doctor had some really convincing reasons why it was necessary. Inducing is considered to be low risk because it's done all the time, and I guess it is insofar as the mom and baby end up being okay in the long run, but there are risks. It's possible for due dates to be wrong, and the baby could be not quite ready to be born. If that's the case, there could be breathing difficulties right after the birth. Also, your chances of having a c-section are much higher if you're induced because the body simply won't deliver a baby if it's not ready. And while c-sections are extremely safe, they're also much more dangerous than "normal" births. (The v-word gets bleeped out, sorry.) There are also rare complications, such as uterine rupture, with pitocin. In fact, people get so worried about moms trying to deliver babies "normally" after they've had a c-section, but the risk of uterine rupture with a VBAC (v birth after cesarean) is about the same as the risk of uterine rupture with pitocin inducements.

With all that being said, statistically, she still doesn't have much to worry about. The birth may be harder if she's induced, and the recovery will be harder if she ends up with a c-section, but a few months from now, mom and baby will be just as healthy as they would have been otherwise. I would try not to worry about it, as a MIL.

Now if she's worried about it, she should ask her doctor. If he doesn't have a good reason why she needs to be induced, she should tell him that she doesn't want to be. She probably won't get much of an arguement. Some doctors (especially older ones, it seems to me) are just in the habbit of inducing women around their due dates because they think women don't want to go much longer. Even if he does tell her that he wants to do it now, it's not like he can drag her to the hospital, tie her to the bed, and put an IV in her arm. You can always refuse any medical intervention you don't want. I did it during my pregnancy. I got some strange looks, but life went on.