worked L&D last night

[ohmeowzer RN]

we had a G2 P2 yesterday came in at 0800( yes day shift ) for induction.. had pit hung as much as we could stayed at 5cm 80% efface all night long... when i left she was only dilated to 9 cm and 90 % effaced.. it seems to me that she labored way to long.. she is very short 5 foot 1 and she had a epidural ... what is the longest you have had a mother waiting to deliver before they do a c section? this poor woman is exhausted .. the baby appears in no distress... so far her total is 25 hours of heck,,, poor thing.. i would love to hear your delivery stories.. i have had 6 kids and i never waited that long.... ty all in advance !!

[rbytsdy]

Well, let's think about this. At 9cm, mom is soooo close. Do you really think you'd be saving her from anything with a c-section? Instead you would take an exhausted woman and put her through major surgery with a painful recovery.

Also, let's think about evidenced based medicine. The average labor is 17 hours. This mom was induced. 25 hours is not that long for an induced labor. If mom and baby are doing okay, where is the indication for putting this mom through the risks of major surgery? Is there any evidence to suggest that a 5'1" mother is incapable of pushing a baby out? Nope.

I think it's easy to think that we are "saving" moms from birth with surgery that has become (in today's world) very common. For what its worth, I spent 29 hours in labor (17 of that was very intense and included pitocin). I never really got out of early labor (only made it to about 5cm) so when the staff came in to "save" me from more labor, it sounded like a good idea. I traded in exhaustion for terrible pain + exhaustion. With baby #2 I labored (intense labor - I'm not including the days of prodromal labor before) for nearly 2 days. Yes, I was quite exhausted. But i found a 2nd wind when it was time to push. :)