First Sweep Tomorrow! - 12/01/14

Gosh it took some thought to get the right date in the title then!

Ooooooooooooo I'm super excited about tomorrow, I'm getting a sweep!

Or should I say I better bloody be getting a sweep.

There are a couple of risks involved. Firstly, that she can't reach my cervix because I'm super unfavourable at which point I'll cry, a lot. Secondly, that she won't accept my consultants consent because she wrote down to allow sweeps at term (40 weeks) and term+7 (41 weeks) and tomorrow I'm technically only 39+5 according to the hospital at which point I'll have a major tantrum. I did double check with the consultant it'll be fine and she said yes.

Surprisingly not everyone seems to know what a sweep is, well yoga friend didn't know anyway, so I'll attempt to explain what it is and why people have them.

Basically it is performed by a midwife and what they do is ram their hand as far up your vagina as possible in an attempt to locate your cervix to allow them to stick a finger inside it. Once the finger is in the cervix, they hook their finger around the edge and pull it to try and stretch it and separate it from the amniotic sac. The stretching opens up the cervix more and also releases labour starting hormones. Separating the waters increases the likelihood of them bursting which would also commence labour.

In some cases, the cervix is too high up to reach properly and they might either just poke around the outside of the cervix to try and release some hormones or give up completely.

They tend to do this once someone is overdue or when they have been admitted with what appears to be the start of slow labour. They might do it for anyone already in labour, I don't know.

You can attempt it yourself if you are dexterous enough but the risks are infection and that you might directly break the waters which is definitely not the intention as you might not be favourable but once the waters are gone you only have 24 hours to get the baby out before major interventions occur.

After a sweep it is normal to experience cramps, loss of mucus and bleeding.

Anyway, that's what I'm having. I'm at least hoping that I get some proper contraction type cramps out of it but going into labour would be very welcomed also.

I'll be trying to get another one booked for this Friday but I don't think they'll let me before next Monday.