Hospital policy is not law. Many women aren't aware they can decline an induction if there is no medical reason (and even if there is, but that's unlikely to happen). You can ask your care provider to check your baby's health, and yours, until such time as labour begins spontaneously.
If someone is over 37 weeks pregnant and their waters break with no signs of labour, they may be offered the choice of an induction or 24 hours to wait and see if labour starts . It always remains the woman's decision to accept or decline an induction.
Labor induction increases the risk that the uterine muscles won't properly contract after giving birth (uterine atony). This can lead to serious bleeding after delivery. Occasionally blood products are needed for serious bleeding.
Your provider may recommend inducing labor if your health or your baby's health is at risk or if you're 2 weeks or more past your due date. For some women, inducing labor is the best way to keep mom and baby healthy. Inducing labor should be for medical reasons only.
Going for a mani/pedi, getting a pregnancy massage, cuddling with your partner, walking the outside with the dog and having intercourse are all potential ways to naturally increase oxytocin.
If one week has passed since the due date, inducing labor can lower the risk of the baby dying. But this risk is generally very low: it happens in about 3 out of 1,000 births when labor isn't induced. Inducing labor can also lower the risk of serious breathing problems and of having to have a Cesarean section.
But if a woman doesn't go into labor – naturally or induced – long after the due date, she or her baby might suddenly develop such serious health problems that an emergency Cesarean section might be necessary. It is difficult to say at what point a woman has been pregnant for too long.
It's your choice whether to have your labour induced or not. If your pregnancy lasts longer than 42 weeks and you decide not to have your labour induced, you should be offered increased monitoring to check your baby's wellbeing.
The medications used to induce labor — oxytocin or a prostaglandin — might cause the uterus to contract too much, which can lessen the baby's oxygen supply and lower the baby's heart rate.
An induced labour can be more painful than a natural labour. In natural labour, the contractions build up slowly, but in induced labour they can start more quickly and be stronger. Because the labour can be more painful, you are more likely to want some type of pain relief.
Can I wait for labor to begin naturally? Nature typically prepares the cervix for delivery in the most efficient, comfortable way. However, when there's concern about mother's or baby's health or the pregnancy continues two weeks past the due date, inducing labor might be the best option.
Induced labor can reduce maternal anxiety and discomfort related to normal pregnancy, especially when the patient lives far from the hospital or has a history of previous pregnancy with labor abnormalities, or in case of concern for rapid labor in multiparous women.
Researchers have found that inducing labor after 37 weeks of pregnancy can lower the risk of perinatal mortality without increasing caesarean section rates. However, babies born to mothers who are induced are more likely to be admitted to a special care baby unit.
Although the vast majority of stillbirths occur before 39 weeks and the risk of fetal demise in a healthy woman at term is extremely low,12 there is no disagreement that a fetal death at full term is a tragedy, and advocates of 39-week elective induction cite avoidance of this potentially preventable outcome.
If you have been offered an induction of labour for a specific reason, but you do not want this, you can choose to wait for natural labour or plan a caesarean birth instead. Speak with your healthcare professional as early as possible to discuss your options.
As oxytocin levels increase, more endorphins are released. When labour is induced, the artificial oxytocin used to stimulate contractions does not cross the blood-brain barrier. Your body doesn't receive signals to release the endorphins and you experience more intense pain.
The rate of induction of labor in the U.S. has risen from 9.6% in 1990 to 25.7% in 2018, including 31.7% of first-time births. Recent studies that have examined inductions have been small qualitative studies or relied on either medical records or administrative data.
If you're overdue and have had a straightforward pregnancy, then you'll be offered induction between 41 to 42 weeks because: the risk of stillbirth increases when pregnancy goes beyond 42 weeks. at 37 weeks pregnant the chance of stillbirth is 1 in every 3,000 births.
However, the proportion of cesarean delivery was significantly lower for the induced group (18.6 percent), compared to the other group (22.2 percent).
Though with more than 20 percent of pregnancies requiring induction in the United States annually, she says it's “critical to be able to appropriately counsel patients and families about the risks and benefits of induction.”
In order to mitigate that risk, induction is routinely scheduled anywhere between 37 and 39 weeks. As a sovereign individual, you always have the right to accept or decline any medical treatment that is offered to you. Therefore, the general answer is no, a doctor can never force you to be induced.
You at 42 weeks
There's a higher risk of stillbirth if you go over 42 weeks pregnant, although most babies remain healthy. At the moment, there's no way to reliably predict which babies are at increased risk of stillbirth, so induction is offered if you do not go into labour by 42 weeks.