So You're Facing An Induction
There’s lots of reasons why you might be watching this video but what I want you to do right now is put both hands on your belly, close your eyes, take a deep breath in through your nose, let it out through your mouth. Now another breath, but this time the exhale like you’re fogging up a mirror. Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth, and let your baby know it’s okay. Let them know that it’s all good, that soon they’re going to get to have their birthday party and that you can’t wait to meet them.
Inductions can be really, really stressful but they don’t have to be. You’ve probably heard some nightmares stories from friends about being induced, maybe even heard about the dreadful back and forth to the hospital, or evil Pitocin or some other fear-mongering experiences but let’s file those under “Not Your Story To Carry” and open up a whole new folder.
Your induction absolutely can be wonderful. This video is meant to prepare you a little bit as to what to expect, different questions you can ask, and hopefully the little bits of information can remove a bit of the fear of the unknown which in turn can cause more ease and confidence surrounding the entire experience.
So why do we induce? It boils down to wanting to create uterine contractions where there presently are none. There are a few different ways that your care provider might medically induce your labour but there are situations where one or two options may not be available, like if your water has broken spontaneously for example.
So one method of medical induction is using a cervical ripening agent which is a gel that is put on the cervix to help it soften. You might hear it be called Cervadil, it’s prescription name, but most often it is referred to as just ‘the gel’. So imagine your cervix is like a lifesaver. In order to get the hole in the middle to get bigger, or dilate, the lifesaver also needs to get thinner. Your cervix is a lot more complicated than a lifesaver because it has to move from a posterior or backward-facing position to an anterior or forward-facing position and it also needs to get shorter but just like a lifesaver, the thinner it gets, the bigger the hole in the middle naturally gets too. The cervadil works to soften the cervix which can also help to thin it out. A long, hard cervix is not one that is opening or ready for labour, so cervadil is often used before pitocin if possible to have the body already be in a responsive state for when the contractions begin. When you hear of someone who was induced who went back and forth to the hospital, their induction probably involved the gel. Often one application of gel gets put on and then 6 to 12 hours later another application is done and if there still aren’t any contractions then often they’ll offer one more. In the hours between applications, families are often sent home to rest and wait. If you’re going in for cervadil as part of your induction, don’t expect anything too exciting! It can be quite anticlimactic as you’ll get some gel put on, monitored for an hour, and then sent home. Often there’s some crampiness or discomfort, but if the cervix is still hard and closed then it’s natural that a couple of applications of gel would be needed. If your care provider has suggested Cervadil, then hands up and celebrate! Time is the best induction method and try to get all the hours you can between applications! Cervadil is a drug and *will* have some sort of effect so time between doses can make all the difference and give you the best chance of going into labour naturally which is a phenomenal gift that you’d be offering to your body and your baby. If you are getting some cervadil on, lay out some cozy pyjamas for yourself before you leave and cue up the Netflix. Expect to come home and want to snuggle into a warm bath or into bed. It’s also super important to rest because it is undeniable that the back and forths between the hospitals can be exhausting and labour *is* coming so going into it rested is of the utmost importance. So please eat lots, rest lots, and pretend that this is the early labour we’ve been preparing for because it totally is. Inductions are one of the hardest types of early labour because they don’t come with any uterine contractions so do your best to get your head in a good space, focus on being really positive, focus on taking really good care of yourself and do your best to really trust the process even if all of it is unseen and happening within your body.
So the next type of medical induction is the Foley bulb catheter but has lots of nicknames. The Foley, the bulb, the catheter, the balloon -- it’s all the same thing. It involves a small tube with a little balloon attached to the end being put up through the cervix and filled with a saline solution. The little balloon then acts as the baby’s head and puts pressure on the cervix, encouraging it to soften and open. When the cervix reaches 3 or 4 cm, the balloon falls out and that’s that.
With the gel and the balloon, sometimes after the last application of gel or after the balloon falls out, there are still no contractions and that’s okay. It’s actually awesome that the cervix has done all this work and is softening and opening with no uterine contractions because it’s less work that you need to do while having contractions so focus on the good rather than any of the other stuff. If there are uterine contractions, awesome, your body will be well on its way to be in labour.
Once induction is started, it’s like a cascade in the sense that there’s no stopping the flow of motion. Once the gel or balloon has started the induction, your care provider will continue with the induction if the body hasn’t gone into full-blown labour on its own. It’s often the gel or the balloon, and the next step would be pitocin.
Pitocin is often called oxytocin but it’s important to note that oxytocin is what your body makes naturally and pitocin is a synthetic form of the hormone. This is important to note because although pitocin and oxytocin do do the same thing, they cause uterine contractions, but one is naturally ocurring and the other is not. The reason why I bring this up is two-fold: one is that because pitocin is a synthetic form of the hormone, your body isn’t expecting it. This means that the cocktail of hormones and signals that are made naturally when someone is labour in terms of coping and escalating sensations of contractions is not being made so the contractions might feel differently and your body might react differently than it would have in spontaneous labour. The other important difference to note is that pitocin can be stopped but oxytocin can not. So, essentially, once the pitocin is turned off, the contractions will stop. But there’s no off-button when contractions are occurring through the body’s creation of oxytocin.
If you’re facing an induction, I encourage you to set aside every story you’ve ever heard about pitocin or inductions. Hear me when I say that inductions are often long, boring and uneventful. You’ll spend lots of time waiting for the care provider, waiting for an update, waiting for your cervix to be checked, waiting to hear something. Inductions are very slow the majority of the time and they are also 100% manageable. You absolutely can still birth without pain medication if that’s what you’d like, you absolutely can still move around and be in different labour positions, and you absolutely haven’t done anything wrong. You could have done nothing more or nothing better… baby simply is holding out for the birth day they want.
Eat lots, bring some Netflix to the hospital, and cue up lots of meditations you can listen to with your headphones on. Wear super comfy clothes, drink lots and lots of water and be sure that you’re doing the Miles Circuit! Having baby in the best position is one of, if not, the absolute best way to ensure that labour flows nicely so focus on that, focus on staying positive, and focus on your baby; let them know that their birth day is perfect, that everything is good, and that together you’re going to work together to have the best birth possible, induction or not.
So when do I get to you? I usually meet families at the hospitals either when something is stirring post-gel or balloon if contractions are naturally occurring or I’ll meet you shortly after the pitocin is started. Text me, update me, tell me everything and know that I’ll be there when you need me!
Take a moment, write down any questions, check in with your baby, check in with how you’re feeling physically, and send me a message if we haven’t already been chatting. And even if we have, write me or call me any way because I love hearing from you. You’ve got this. Induction is an opportunity for you to showcase your strength, your grace, your focus. I can’t wait to see you rock this birth.
There’s lots of reasons why you might be watching this video but what I want you to do right now is put both hands on your belly, close your eyes, take a deep breath in through your nose, let it out through your mouth. Now another breath, but this time the exhale like you’re fogging up a mirror. Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth, and let your baby know it’s okay. Let them know that it’s all good, that soon they’re going to get to have their birthday party and that you can’t wait to meet them.
Inductions can be really, really stressful but they don’t have to be. You’ve probably heard some nightmares stories from friends about being induced, maybe even heard about the dreadful back and forth to the hospital, or evil Pitocin or some other fear-mongering experiences but let’s file those under “Not Your Story To Carry” and open up a whole new folder.
Your induction absolutely can be wonderful. This video is meant to prepare you a little bit as to what to expect, different questions you can ask, and hopefully the little bits of information can remove a bit of the fear of the unknown which in turn can cause more ease and confidence surrounding the entire experience.
So why do we induce? It boils down to wanting to create uterine contractions where there presently are none. There are a few different ways that your care provider might medically induce your labour but there are situations where one or two options may not be available, like if your water has broken spontaneously for example.
So one method of medical induction is using a cervical ripening agent which is a gel that is put on the cervix to help it soften. You might hear it be called Cervadil, it’s prescription name, but most often it is referred to as just ‘the gel’. So imagine your cervix is like a lifesaver. In order to get the hole in the middle to get bigger, or dilate, the lifesaver also needs to get thinner. Your cervix is a lot more complicated than a lifesaver because it has to move from a posterior or backward-facing position to an anterior or forward-facing position and it also needs to get shorter but just like a lifesaver, the thinner it gets, the bigger the hole in the middle naturally gets too. The cervadil works to soften the cervix which can also help to thin it out. A long, hard cervix is not one that is opening or ready for labour, so cervadil is often used before pitocin if possible to have the body already be in a responsive state for when the contractions begin. When you hear of someone who was induced who went back and forth to the hospital, their induction probably involved the gel. Often one application of gel gets put on and then 6 to 12 hours later another application is done and if there still aren’t any contractions then often they’ll offer one more. In the hours between applications, families are often sent home to rest and wait. If you’re going in for cervadil as part of your induction, don’t expect anything too exciting! It can be quite anticlimactic as you’ll get some gel put on, monitored for an hour, and then sent home. Often there’s some crampiness or discomfort, but if the cervix is still hard and closed then it’s natural that a couple of applications of gel would be needed. If your care provider has suggested Cervadil, then hands up and celebrate! Time is the best induction method and try to get all the hours you can between applications! Cervadil is a drug and *will* have some sort of effect so time between doses can make all the difference and give you the best chance of going into labour naturally which is a phenomenal gift that you’d be offering to your body and your baby. If you are getting some cervadil on, lay out some cozy pyjamas for yourself before you leave and cue up the Netflix. Expect to come home and want to snuggle into a warm bath or into bed. It’s also super important to rest because it is undeniable that the back and forths between the hospitals can be exhausting and labour *is* coming so going into it rested is of the utmost importance. So please eat lots, rest lots, and pretend that this is the early labour we’ve been preparing for because it totally is. Inductions are one of the hardest types of early labour because they don’t come with any uterine contractions so do your best to get your head in a good space, focus on being really positive, focus on taking really good care of yourself and do your best to really trust the process even if all of it is unseen and happening within your body.
So the next type of medical induction is the Foley bulb catheter but has lots of nicknames. The Foley, the bulb, the catheter, the balloon -- it’s all the same thing. It involves a small tube with a little balloon attached to the end being put up through the cervix and filled with a saline solution. The little balloon then acts as the baby’s head and puts pressure on the cervix, encouraging it to soften and open. When the cervix reaches 3 or 4 cm, the balloon falls out and that’s that.
With the gel and the balloon, sometimes after the last application of gel or after the balloon falls out, there are still no contractions and that’s okay. It’s actually awesome that the cervix has done all this work and is softening and opening with no uterine contractions because it’s less work that you need to do while having contractions so focus on the good rather than any of the other stuff. If there are uterine contractions, awesome, your body will be well on its way to be in labour.
Once induction is started, it’s like a cascade in the sense that there’s no stopping the flow of motion. Once the gel or balloon has started the induction, your care provider will continue with the induction if the body hasn’t gone into full-blown labour on its own. It’s often the gel or the balloon, and the next step would be pitocin.
Pitocin is often called oxytocin but it’s important to note that oxytocin is what your body makes naturally and pitocin is a synthetic form of the hormone. This is important to note because although pitocin and oxytocin do do the same thing, they cause uterine contractions, but one is naturally ocurring and the other is not. The reason why I bring this up is two-fold: one is that because pitocin is a synthetic form of the hormone, your body isn’t expecting it. This means that the cocktail of hormones and signals that are made naturally when someone is labour in terms of coping and escalating sensations of contractions is not being made so the contractions might feel differently and your body might react differently than it would have in spontaneous labour. The other important difference to note is that pitocin can be stopped but oxytocin can not. So, essentially, once the pitocin is turned off, the contractions will stop. But there’s no off-button when contractions are occurring through the body’s creation of oxytocin.
If you’re facing an induction, I encourage you to set aside every story you’ve ever heard about pitocin or inductions. Hear me when I say that inductions are often long, boring and uneventful. You’ll spend lots of time waiting for the care provider, waiting for an update, waiting for your cervix to be checked, waiting to hear something. Inductions are very slow the majority of the time and they are also 100% manageable. You absolutely can still birth without pain medication if that’s what you’d like, you absolutely can still move around and be in different labour positions, and you absolutely haven’t done anything wrong. You could have done nothing more or nothing better… baby simply is holding out for the birth day they want.
Eat lots, bring some Netflix to the hospital, and cue up lots of meditations you can listen to with your headphones on. Wear super comfy clothes, drink lots and lots of water and be sure that you’re doing the Miles Circuit! Having baby in the best position is one of, if not, the absolute best way to ensure that labour flows nicely so focus on that, focus on staying positive, and focus on your baby; let them know that their birth day is perfect, that everything is good, and that together you’re going to work together to have the best birth possible, induction or not.
So when do I get to you? I usually meet families at the hospitals either when something is stirring post-gel or balloon if contractions are naturally occurring or I’ll meet you shortly after the pitocin is started. Text me, update me, tell me everything and know that I’ll be there when you need me!
Take a moment, write down any questions, check in with your baby, check in with how you’re feeling physically, and send me a message if we haven’t already been chatting. And even if we have, write me or call me any way because I love hearing from you. You’ve got this. Induction is an opportunity for you to showcase your strength, your grace, your focus. I can’t wait to see you rock this birth.