Is it possible that some women just don't produce the proper hormones for labor to begin? When a 40 week pregnancy starts edging towards 42 weeks many doctors and midwives start talking about means of inducing labor. How long is "too long" to be pregnant?
First, babies all gestate at different rates. Humans function "normally" within a wide range of metabolisms, blood pressures, heart rates, hours of sleep needed per night, etc. Do we assume every cake will be "done" in the same amount of time when they are baking in different ovens at different temperatures? Why, then, would we assume that every baby is "done" at 40 weeks past the first day of the last period? Heck, human women don't even ovulate on the same schedules.
There is wide spread concern within the medical community that all placentas can fail to provide a "late" baby with the nourishment it needs. "At 42 weeks a baby is better off out than in", apparently the human womb is a ticking time bomb. The fear is that hormones won't kick in, labor will never begin and the time bomb will fizzle, taking the baby with it. Babies must be rescued from the womb before the mother has a chance to kill it.
Nature is not typically designed that way. Humans have been going into labor for all of history without Pitocin The majority animals continue to do so.
I have heard of cases where the child died in utero after the 40th week. It is exceptionaly rare and seems to be a bigger risk for mothers with diabetes or other metabolism disorders than for otherwise healthy women. To be fair, I have heard of far more cases where the child died in the 7th week. Motherhood is never safe from grief. Losing children is both a normal and common experience and always has been. Doctors can't always protect us from losing our children.
The dangers of medical induction are well documented but doctors are taught to fear a woman's body and what it might do to the baby far more than they are taught to fear drugs and what they will do to the birth.
Birth is an unfolding, a dance between mother and child. Forcing it to follow the "approved dance steps" saps power from all mothers but might save a few babies. Mostly, it reminds me of butterflies emerging from cocoons. If they are helped out of their tiny prisons by eager observers they never build the strength necessary to fly. Mothers and babies who aren't left to work out the birth dance on their own terms will often struggle together through life, not quite connecting with each others rhythms. An empowered birth doesn't guarantee a close family unit but it's a good way to start working on one.
When your pregnancy creeps into the 10th month, it's time to connect. Is there a problem? Are emotional issues in the family needing resolution first? Our connection to our child is especially important when others start injecting fear into the situation. Padding the due date by 3-4 weeks can reduce the number of "Are you still pregnant?" calls towards the end of a long pregnancy.
It's pefectly normal to birth at 45-46 weeks or even later than that, if the mother still feels good about it. The other side of the induction question is, of course, what about when the mother senses a real need to "kick start" labor for whatever reason?
One wise, oxytocin researching woman I know described the mechanism of induction this way. Imagine the baby as a boulder supported by a lagre column of rock, this column of rock is your pregnancy. Day by day, the column of rock erodes away under the boulder and one day the column will no longer support it and the boulder will begin to roll away (labor will begin). As long as that column of rock is solid, no amount of pushing and prodding will encourage it to roll but, at some point near the end of pregnancy, the column will have eroded enough that a good solid push will get labor rolling. Of course, by that point labor is just around the corner anyway...
A "failed induction" is typically only a failure to wait for the baby to be ready for birth. Unless your baby is in serious distress, avoid phameceutical inductions and save yourself the pain of possible "failure", not to mention the pain of Pitocin-enhanced contractions (yeeeowch!)
Despite what some women seem to think, there really is no secret labor-starting potion that will work to evict every procrastinating baby out there. It is often hard for women who've been avoiding dozens of herbs and medications and activities for fear of causing a miscarriage to believe that there isn't some natural way to reliably stimulate labor, but there isn't. There are a few ways to check and see if your body and your baby are ready for birth, some of them pleasant, some not so pleasant. Let's begin with the pleasant ones...
Sex ~ Sexual stimulation encourages the production of natural oxytocin. Nipple stimulation, specifically, is connected to the body's oxytocin producing mechanisms. Human semen is also reasonably high in natural prostaglandins (well, OK, semen is generally high in prostaglandins, prosta = prostate, that's why the prostaglandin products used by doctors are made using pig semen. Personally, I'd rather have sex with my husband than with a pig...) and can be effective when applied directly to the cervix and when taken orally as well.
Meditation ~ Centering the mind on the baby and asking hir what s/he needs in order to feel safe being born is a painless way to inspire labor. Many women have been known to have these "chats" right before, or even during a prolonged, labor and swear by this method's effectiveness. Be sure you listen and address any concerns that come up.
Herbs ~ Some herbs and at least one oil have been reported to bring on some labors. I'm not qualified to explain them all, but more information can be found on these sites:
MoonDragon's Birthing
Midwive's Archives
UK Midwive's Archives
Exertion ~ Tiring yourself out with a long walk/run is one way to bring on labor. However, starting labor in a state of exhaustion is rarely a good idea, so I really can't recommend such a strategy.
Just reading all of the confusion over what induction methods are safe or unsafe is enouch to make me hope that you will explore the above links and decide to trust your baby's timing.
Find your center, focus on your baby, birth will happen when it is time for it to happen.
Judith writes:
I don't know under what circumstances you feel induction might be "necessary". I've personally long felt that even natural birthing types used acupressure, visualization, and especially castor oil way too much. For me, it would be, like, after what I knew FOR sure was four weeks after the due date and even then only with evidence that the placenta was starting to slow down in its function, or the baby was getting so big it was going to be really hard to get him or her out (unlikely too, but every once in a while I hear about some baby that was starting to get bigger than mother's bones seemed to be willing to stretch for...I do think that pelvises are a lot like penises that way though, size is definitely not the only or the most important factor in how they function!)
But there is a plant called trillium that grows in the woodlands...we see it in secondary redwood forests here on the West Coast. Trillium is supposed to be a powerful labor-inducer. Its old common name was "beth-root" whch is probably a version of "birth-root." Look up "trillium" in a picture guide to medicinal and edible plants.. there's probably a type that grows somewhere near you. It's a beautiful plant that should not be over-harvested...but a little chunk of Trillium root is supposed to be an effective labor encouragement.
I still sort of like the "ride on a dirt road in an old pick-up truck" as a way of augmenting labor. Don't shoot me, folks who can't handle Ina May's/The Farm's trip, but a lot of this I got from 'Spiritual Midwifery' twenty years ago, both the mixed drinks (for stopping an early labor) and the bumpy truck ride ideas. The trillium I learned about through Joy Gardner, who has a useful little book on herbs for pregnancy and the childbearing year.
