Induction with Pitocin

Induction or Augmentation with Pitocin

From The Official Lamaze Guide: Giving Birth with Confidence.

What to Know:

• Pitocin increases stress on your baby and your uterus and makes contractions more difficult to manage.
• Pitocin use necessitates an IV and continuous EFM, restricts your mobility, and raises your risk of epidural and cesarean.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) believes that Pitocin induction and augmentation are often used inappropriately.
• The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) notes the risks of Pitocin use and recommends cautious decision making.

You’ll need induction if:

• Your labor is slow as determined by your care provider and doesn’t respond to movement, position change, and hydration.
• You don’t go into labor spontaneously by forty-two weeks gestation.
• You have a uterine infection.
• You have severe pregnancy-induced hypertension.

How to Avoid Unnecessary Use:

• Be patient waiting for labor to begin and to progress.
• Remember that your body knows how to give birth.
• Surround yourself with helpers who trust birth.
• Stay confident.
• Use all the comfort measures you’ve learned.
• Don’t agree to be induced because your caregiver says your baby is getting too big.
• If your water breaks before contractions start, or if you go past your due date, discuss with your caregiver natural ways to stimulate contractions, such as drinking a bit of castor oil in juice, stimulating your nipples, and being active.
• Ask, “What if I wait?” if your caregiver is insistent about inducing labor.

How to Keep Labor as Normal as Possible if You are Induced:

• Make sure your helpers give you continuous emotional and physical support.
• Actively seek comfort in response to the pain of contractions.
• Remember that your body knows how to give birth.
• Visualize your baby rotating and descending through your birth canal.
• Keep moving and changing positions as much as possible.

Read more about medical interventions:

• Induction by artificial rupture of membranes
• IV fluids
• Epidural and anesthesia
• Movement restrictions
• Continuous electronic fetal monitoring (EFM)
• Directed pushing
• Episiotomy
• Cesarean surgery