The fear of induction is growing.

But What Has Happened To Spontaneous Birth?

My thoughts over the start of the Easter holidays keep returning to the subject of induction of labour and how normalised it has become for perfectly healthy women.

The rhetoric of IOL for safety has seeped into everything to do with those precious last weeks of pregnancy. I read it daily on Facebook and hear it regularly from my clients.

Women are no longer relaxing and enjoying themselves but instead eating dates, taking or inserting evening primrose oil, consuming pineapple or curry or castor oil. They are walking miles, doing specific exercises and their minds are turned wholly onto how to avoid induction by making their baby miraculously appear.

Their belief in their own bodies has diminished - ‘Will this baby ever come?’ they wonder. Well-meaning friends and family ask again and again, ‘has the baby arrived yet?’ ‘is this safe?’ ‘there is so much risk’ … ‘just do the right thing!’.

And the parents-to-be are wondering - What is the right thing?

How has something that was only meant for situations when either mum or baby were unwell now become so normalised? How has something so regularly known to fail become the one thing that women are guaranteed they will be offered in their care?

The flawed studies and the open admittance that it is more painful and that the evidence behind it is weak.

Why has IOL become so bloody central to the entire birth experience?⠀
Why can’t those precious last few weeks remain a time of calm and positivity?⠀
What will it take for our belief in spontaneous labour to return? The positive nature of just watching, waiting and caring.

Where can we go from here?

We know that the emperor is stark naked and yet he continues to parade down the street.