Why You Need Pitocin in Labor

Many women come to labor and delivery fearing Pitocin, loathing Pitocin, and swearing up and down that “over their dead body” will they have Pitocin to augment their labor.   While I have heard the rationales for this argument on many occasions, I want present a very common scenario where you will end up getting Pitocin at the hosptial (but alas, there will be no dead bodies).
Before all else, I want to stress that if you have had a healthy pregnancy and have not been told otherwise by your provider (and I will later review common danger signs), we encourage you to labor at home as long as possible, especially if you are expecting your first baby.  We want you to be in an environment where you are comfortable, surrounded  by supportive people who care about you.  We want you to be able to walk around, get into the bath, or shower, eat and drink, and remain free from the prodding hands of medical personnel who are obligated to get certain information and blood work from you once you arrive at the hospital.  Being at home in early labor will probably give you a better experience than if you came to the hospital during this uncomfortable, but uneventful latent phase.
The “problem” invariably arises and the Pitocin will appear sooner rather later in your labor when you come to the hospital during the latent phase of labor when you are uncomfortable and seeking pain control.    If this is deemed a sufficient reason for admission (and sometimes it is not and you will be sent home with pain medication), you now find yourself in a situation that is ripe for the Pitocin-picking.   You will receive either your IV medication, or epidural as you requested, but there is a good chance that hours later your cervix will not have dilated, or will have made minimal change.  Why does this happen so consistently?   It is not because of the medication or epidural, it is because you were not yet in active labor when you came in and you are still not yet in active labor. It can sometimes take hours or even days to transition from latent to active labor.
In an ideal world, we would have enough labor beds to accommodate everyone in early labor who decided to get an epidural and could be more than 24 hours from delivery, but that is not the case.  The reality is that we are often at capacity with women who are coming in 8cm dilated with their 3rd baby and need a room to deliver in NOW.  We have to have a place for them and cannot allow everyone in early labor to be resting in early labor with their epidurals.
So how can we deal with this?  Pitocin.  We have to speed up the process to get the women who are in early labor into active labor so that they will deliver.   This is when I want to reiterate that we would all prefer that moms stayed at home and waited until they were naturally in active labor so Pitocin was not necessary.  However, if you come in for pain control in latent labor, there is a very good chance you will end up needing Pitocin and the supply-demand factor of rooms and staff is the reason.  If you are adamantly against Pitocin, try to stay at home as long as possible and your chances of its use will be greatly diminished.  You have the greatest control over your delivery and your birthing experience by your decision of when you to go to the hospital.
*You need to go to immediately call the hospital if your baby is not moving, you are having bright red vaginal bleeding, you are having a long contraction that is not subsiding, your bag of water breaks and the fluid is not clear, or you are known to be GBS+, or you have any other concerns that your provider alerted you to.
How dilated were you when you got to the hospital?   Did you need Pitocin?
Thanks to http://www.momaroo.com/