Birth plan part 3 – assisted delivery

Firstly can I apologise for the many changes to the site over the last week, including the disappearance of the header and the appearance of some strange ads.  We are making some technical changes to the site and have run into a few issues.  I hope they will be sorted out this week.  Anyway, I’ll get on with my post about assisted delivery.

Many of the questions that I have been asked about my birth plan refer to the use of oxytocin to speed up labour, the use of forceps or ventouse in the delivery process, and the use of an episiotomy to make the delivery quicker or easier. I’ll try to tell you a bit about my first delivery and what I’m going to put in my birth plan for next time, although my views on assisted delivery are still not 100% fixed.

When I had my son I had been having contractions for well over twenty-four hours when my doctor decided to speed up the delivery process using an oxytocin drip.  I was very happy that the decision was made as I was getting extremely tried and restless.  The contractions were fairly strong, long and close together, I just wasn’t making much process at dilating.

I think I was still only two or three centimetres when I was given the oxytocin, but after that the labour progressed fairly speedily.  I was a bit more limited in my movements as I was attached to the drip, but I was still able to use the birthing pool and get to the bathroom.  The contractions were incredibly strong with the oxytocin and it was very noticeable each time the dosage was increased, but it was a welcome and productive sort of pain, and I would definitely want to have the same treatment again if my labour wasn’t progressing naturally.

I made good progress in the second stage of labour, and the baby’s head crowned fairly quickly, but then at the last moment he got stuck under the pelvic bone.  It was very frustrating as my mum kept saying that she could see the head but all the pushing I was doing wasn’t making any progress.

After the birth my midwife implied that the doctor was wrong to use ventouse and that he should have let me try for longer.  However, I was very relieved that he made that decision as my son’s heartbeat showed that he was distressed and I was really suffering.  I will definitely have another ventouse delivery if the doctor thinks it is necessary.

I didn’t have an episiotomy with my first baby.  It is often a routine procedure with a ventouse delivery, but there simply wasn’t time in my case.  Without the episiotomy I did tear quite badly and this caused a fair amount of pain and discomfort for a couple of weeks after the birth.

Routine episiotomies are no longer performed, as women tend to heal better if they tear naturally, but if I have to have another ventouse delivery then I will ask for one if there is time. Having had one quite bad tear, I might ask my midwife if she would recommend a routine episiotomy this time.  If I can deliver without a cut or tear that would of course be the best result!

If you have any opinions on assisted delivery or have any experiences to share I would love to hear from you.

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