So looking after a woman last night who I had met the previous night and we had sent her home in the end, she returned soon after we came on shift last night and was still in the latent phase of labour.

She did want to stay, so we kept her care low-risk, listened in every hour or so and did not VE her until much later on when we needed to make a plan of care, or basically whether to send her home or do something!

I had sent her home previously and had hoped to protect her from the inevitable cascade of intervention.

So at what point was she left this morning?

Epidural in situ, CTG continously monitoring, ARM'ed, 7-8 centimetres.

Now you all know I am all for normal and I was able to work and be involved in decisions that enabled us to try to keep it normal for longer (we got jip for it this am, but that's another story...)

So my point is, anyway... that in that situation it ending up with epidural was in the end the right thing to do, FH was fine , but starting to have the odd warning signs (some variable decels, rare, but there) Also fetus was direct OP and so the woman had lots of pain.

Yet another thing I learned from it was we can try to keep things normal (and whose to say it might of stayed that way if baby had been more in optimal position?)

but sometimes it can't and is that so bad?

I discussed an epidural at length with her, she was not keen, but she was suffering so much, had not slept at all in two days, neither had her partner.

It worked well, yes we then had to other things, but she was pain-free and got to sleep for an hour, so...it made them happier and calmer and the couple I first met returned!

so what do you think?

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