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Snowball of Interventions – what it means and why every Mama should be familiar with it.

admin • Jan 31, 2023

First things first: the most important thing in this whole journey is yours and your baby’s life. Everything else is secondary. But if you have a choice and there is no direct threat to anyone’s health or even life it is good to make informed choices and weigh all the pros and cons to interventions.

Your doctor or a midwife says that they are going on vacation so they have to induce you at 38 weeks. The decision is yours and only yours to make – do you decide to do it? Do you decide to wait? Here is some guidance.

Although induction is sometimes medically necessary it became widely used out of convenience – ideally mom comes in in the morning, they start her on pitocin, she gets an epidural when her contractions pick up and then after some purple pushing has the baby. Win for the hospital and win for the mom. Really? Not necessarily.

Snowball of interventions is a term widely used in birth world. It means that when one intervention is used most likely other will follow (it is not a rule but a high likelihood).

So for example pitocin usually makes contractions really strong – they don’t rise and fall like a wave but hit you like a hammerso even very strong willed mamas or those who do hypno birthing find it hard not to seek some form of relief mostly in form of an epidural. If this is what you want- then perfect! Not everybody wants to go through the emotional and physical rollercoaster of natural labor. But if not – you might want to consider waiting for an onset of natural labor.

Other example is breaking waters- it might help speed things up but also it makes contractions way more intense and once waters are broken you are on the 24h clock if you are laboring in a hospital- after 24h the baby would need to have antibiotics administered- not really fun to start your life like that huh? Also, breaking waters prematurely might engage baby in your pelvis in a way that is not optimal for birthing.

What you can do is discuss your options with you ob or midwife and if you are not high risk they most likely will put you on non-stress test – which is sitting down in a recliner while baby’s heart rate, your blood pressure and contractions (if any) are monitored. So not invasive but keeps you and the baby safe and your medical team satisfied

Look at the diagram that shows the snowball in a very detailed way.

You’ve got this, Mama!

I’m here with you EVERY.STEP.OF.THE.WAY!

Marta Uras, Your Doula