Step 8

We only offer to intervene in your labour if absolutely necessary and if it is clear that it will do more good than harm.

Medical interventions include induction of labour, drugs to speed up your labour, breaking your waters, continuous electronic monitoring of your baby’s heartbeat, epidurals, birth using forceps, and birth by Caesarian section. 
 
Medical interventions interfere with your ability to move around and release the hormones which help you to give birth and breastfeed. Medical interventions also all carry risks. 
 
A ‘cascade of interventions’ happens because one intervention usually leads to another. It makes sense therefore only to offer to intervene if it is necessary for the safety of mother and baby. 
 
Large hospitals frequently have a culture where intervention is routine and accepted, perhaps because the technology to deal with the results of the intervention is readily available. It can be difficult to have a straightforward birth, a waterbirth and the freedom to do what you want in a large hospital. For more information on this and alternatives such as a home birth or birth in a community maternity unit, contact a midwife and see the MIDIRS Informed Choice leaflet number 3.
 
 If you would like to understand more about midwifery-led care, community maternity units (also known as free-standing birth centres) and the downside of obstetric units, have a look at the article Fish Can’t See Water by Marsden Wagner or the AIMS Journal 18(3) 2006 on free-standing birth centres.
 
One of the most common medical interventions is induction of labour. For more information on your options when your baby is ‘overdue’, see the MIDIRS Informed Choice leaflet number 12.