By Jade Gordon
My Top 5 Tips for a More Positive Induction
Jade Gordon shares her top tips on having a positive induction of labour. Nurturing Birth’s series of specialist articles are written to help you to help your doulas clients, so do feel free to share these articles with your clients, and, of course, on your social media!
Firstly, I want to mention that having a positive birth (induced or otherwise), or not having a positive birth doesn’t only depend on what you do. If you’ve not had a positive experience, if you’ve had a traumatic birth, induction or otherwise, it’s not your fault. The things on this list are about doing your best to stack the odds a bit more in your favour, rather than a recipe for how to guarantee a positive birth.
- Own your decision
I’m going to presume here that you’ve made an informed choice to be induced. Perhaps it was easy, perhaps it was tough, but you’ve decided to be induced. Now it’s time to accept your decision, (which doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind on the day!), and own it..
Many people turn up at their induction appointment feeling pretty miserable, like their body has failed them. I remember being really fearful and feeling like everything was out of control. I had already kicked off that fight/flight/freeze response which was going to make things a whole lot harder for me.
By owning your decision, you take back your power, and you begin to take back control of your experience.
So, the first step is to accept and own your decision, and to begin boosting your mindset, which takes me to number 2…
- Read Positive Induction Birth Stories
Once you’ve accepted or made peace with your decision, it’s time to take action. Reading Positive Induction stories is a great way to notice gaps in your knowledge, to pick up tips and ideas for your birth.
It will also help you with owning your decision, especially if all you’ve heard is that induction is always a bad choice. This its simply not the case.
There are more than 50 positive induction stories in the Positive Induction Birth Story Library (https://positiveinduction.com/positive-induction-birth-stories/). If you like reading birth stories, and you’ve decided to be induced, this is a great way to bring some positivity into your birth planning.
- Review What You’ve Already Done
Often when people choose to be induced, they feel the work that’s been done already in preparing goes out the window. That’s absolutely not true!
Review what you’ve already done, whether that’s hypnobirthing, or another class, books you’ve read etc. Almost all tools can be adapted, things like knowing how contractions work, breathing, birth positions, how to deal with worries and fears, decision making… I would argue they’re even more important when you choose to have an induction.
If you haven’t yet taken that hypnobirthing class, or read the books on birth that you’ve bought, or hired a doula, and you’d wanted to but didn’t think it was worth it as you’ve decided to be induced, it’s really worth re-visiting that decision. All of these options are just as valid if you’ve chosen induction of labour – if not more so – as anything that you can do to keep calm and support your body to birth is likely to help you to have a positive and more straightforward birth.
- Update your birth preferences or plan – this is still YOUR birth!
If you’ve got a birth plan or preferences already, revisit it. Take anything you read in the birth stories part that inspired you and add it in.
This is still your birth, no matter what intervention you choose or need.
Many of your preferences will still apply. Use your birth plan/preferences as a kind of mental rehearsal; ‘If this happens, what will be important to be, what will help me in this case’. Talk it though with your birth partner too.
- Remember you can still move your body in labour
You may be surprised that everything listed so far is from before you start your induction, because preparation is key! But of course, there’s things to do in labour too. The top one has to be a reminder that you can still move!
Moving your body may be different than how you initially imagined it if you have wired continuous monitoring, or cannulas. Things like using a birth ball or peanut ball can help you find more comfortable positions where you can incorporate movement (birth balls) or rest while keeping a more helpful birth position, such as side lying (peanut ball).
You don’t need to be marching up and down the corridors to benefit from movement. Gentle swaying, or rotating on a birth ball can make a difference.
You may also be able to use a birth pool when you’re being induced, although this will most likely take some negotiation in advance. The AIMS article on using a birth pool when you’re being induced, by Dianne Garland and Emma Ashworth will be really useful to you if this is your preference. See the signposts below for a link to this article.
Final Note
I want to reiterate that having a positive experience is not just down to you, there are always some factors out of our control, it is also the responsibility of a number of people. It’s about focusing of the things you can control, and carrying your general birth preferences through to your induction.
It’s easy to put a lot of pressure on yourself to do a ‘good job’, to feel like there’s certain criteria you’ve set for yourself, but a positive induction is far more about how you feel, how respected and part of the birth you are, than what happens.
Signposts:
Waterbirth and Induction of Labour: https://www.aims.org.uk/journal/item/waterbirth-induction
The AIMS Guide to Induction of Labour: https://shop.aims.org.uk/products/aims-guide-to-induction-of-labour
Positive Induction Birth on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1887019071611257
AIMS Positive Induction Story: https://www.aims.org.uk/journal/item/covid-19-frances-colquhoun
Positive Induction Birth Story Library: https://positiveinduction.com/positive-induction-birth-stories/
Positive Induction Podcast: https://positiveinduction.buzzsprout.com/
The Myth of the “Late” Baby (Nurturing Birth article): https://nurturingbirth.co.uk/mythofthelatebaby/
Jade Gordon is a clinical hypnotherapist and psychotherapist, and founder of SONA Hypnotherapy and positiveinduction.com. Jade specialising in supporting clients preparing for induction, helping them to use hypnotherapy to navigate challenging emotions and prepare for labour and birth.
Jade’s background is originally in oil and gas exploration, which allows her to apply her analytical logical training to the field of hypnotherapy, supporting clients emotionally whilst enabling them to draw from a toolbox of practical methods to prepare for induction.
Jade has also turned her expertise to working with parents, creating the Hypnoparenting programme, to help parents deal with the particular challenges and opportunities of the first 10 years of parenting.