How much worse is petocin?

[Anonymous]

There are other options to consider before you hit the pitocin full-bore. Ask your OB/midwife to apply some cervical ripening gel (cervadil -- not cytotec, if that's used around here anymore) the night before, then insist that you're going home that night rather than stay in the hospital -- your body will thank you for one more night in comfortable, familiar surroundings. Maybe if you can get your cervix to dilate/efface a bit more, labor will start to take off on its own. (If it does, don't report for your induction at the appointed hour the next morning -- stay home and see if you can get things going.)

A Foley catheter is another way to increase dilation, but you'll have to stay in the hospital for that. With either method, focus on getting that baby to drop into position. Walk, climb stairs, crawl on your hands and knees -- anything that opens the pelvis and gets that baby's head to engage with your cervix. That'll start the contractions; lying on your back in a hospital bed, less so.

If it helps, they hit me with two days of pit and I never felt a thing. Sure, the fetal monitor said I was contracting a bit, but I've had menstrual cramps that hurt worse. So you just might be part of the blessed/cursed population for whom it doesn't work. (And I say I didn't feel it as in there was no sensation, not "I'm a hard-core earth mother with a sky-high pain tolerance.")