Cervidil

[Just Me]

I had Cervidil inserted at 38 weeks with DS due to him being a large baby (apparently!). I had to stay in hospital once I had it in. My 'contractions' started almost immediately only they weren't contractions - they were uterus being irritated by the cervidil and my cervix wasn't dilating at all. I went on like that from the Tuesday night at 8pm when they inserted it to 11am on Thursday morning when they broke my waters. They gave me pethidine for the pain on Wednesday afternoon so that I could sleep that night as well as panadeine forte and a sleeping tablet.

I had to have regular visits up to birth suite to check my progress (every 6 hours) once the cervidil was inserted and they would take out the cervidil and then put it back in. The cervidil made everything down there very sensitive, swollen and irritated which meant that the internals were extremely painful. I am a bit surprised they would send you home once it is in - they kept me in because it can cause the baby to be distressed so they like to do regular monitoring of the baby once it is in to make sure that they don't get distressed. One friend that was induced with cervidil had to go and have a c-sect within 30 mins of it being inserted because her baby's heartrate dropped significantly and dangerously.

My cervix was still very high and closed when I had the cervidil inserted so it meant they had to reach a long way to put it causing more pain. It may have worked better if my body was ready in any way, shape or form to go into labour, but I think they were really forcing my labour because nothing was ready to go. It may work for you if your cervix is more favourable, I don't know.

I never want another cervidil experience again. It was a horrible 2 and a half days and left me quite worn out for when labour actually did begin, but that is my experience and everyone's bodies work differently.

Good luck with everything and look forward to reading your BA very soon!

ETA: I also just remembered that when I did go into labour as a result of my waters being broken (they could only break my water because I had previously had a baby so my cervix was just wide enough to get that crochet hook looking thing up there), it didn't progress really well by itself and I had ot have a drip inserted with syntocin (I think it was called). They gave me an epi because they said the drip is extremely painful. So I had a lot of intervention as a result of my induction but again I am not so sure if that is to do with the method of induction or just that my body was simply not ready to go into labour.