‘Available at your local clinic from 40 weeks pregnant ’ despite the fact that most women who are 40 weeks pregnant have already been offered multiple sweeps. There are many, many ways to avoid the pressure to be induced, but having a sweep isn’t one of them because it is a form of induction, and once you have said yes to one form of induction, it becomes much harder to say no to the rest.Ĥ. You can tell your midwife that you will not have an induction and therefore don’t want to discuss it any further, and if they do bring it up against your wishes then you can tell them that they are harassing you. If you don’t want an induction, you don’t have to have one. But here’s the thing… you don’t have to compromise. The idea that you can only avoid a formal induction by having a sweep suggests that saying no isn’t enough and won’t be respected. Offering a more “natural method” of a sweep (rather than a chemical method) seems like a compromise, and women are expected to take this compromise to avoid being pressured into further induction techniques. Midwives have to follow the policies of their hospital, and clearly, this hospital (like many others) see birth as something to be managed, which includes inducing labour at all costs. It is easy to tell from this poster that birth is not seen as a normal bodily function because there is a continuous want to DO something or measure something or fix it. I’m not sure about you but the information they’ve given so far isn’t exactly filling me with confidence that talking to them about it would benefit anybody. So you’ve so far been told that approaching your due date means that you must want to get labour going, and that having someone put their fingers inside you to “sweep” around your cervix is a “natural way to induce labour”, and that you should talk to your community midwife about it. Sweeps are often offered as a way to “avoid induction” but a sweep IS part of induction.ģ. That pressure is coming from the maternity service, so they are offering a “solution”. The other important thing to ask here is why would we want to start labour early? The only reason women feel pressure to “kick things off” is because of the information they are being given about due dates and going past them. The next point of focus on this awful poster is the second line “want to start labour naturally?” … WHAT?! The only natural way for labour to start is to leave well alone because anything that you try to bring labour on before it naturally would, isn’t labour ‘starting naturally’. There is no reason to think that your body wouldn’t go into labour naturally given enough time and patience, it is the healthcare system’s incessant need to interfere that undermines women’s confidence in this.Ģ. I have heard so many times “I’ve never gone into labour before so I don’t even know if I can” or “I wasn’t going into labour so I had to be induced”.
Whilst we’re on the topic of being left to our own devices – have you ever heard of a woman being pregnant forever? I haven’t.
So in reality, if we were all left to our own devices this window of normality would probably stretch much further.
#STRETCH AND SWEEP RISKS FULL#
The “normal” range of being full term is between 37 – 42 weeks, so that is already a wide window but it doesn’t take into account how many women are induced due to the fear of going “overdue” (like a library book). This is simply not the case, they can differ hugely from woman to woman, month to month. Due dates are calculated on the assumption that all women have the same length menstrual cycle. Where do I begin? Maybe from the top and work our way down.ġ.Let’s start with due dates.
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