sweep.... internal exam....

Internal examinations are kept to a minimum and not routinely done
every 3-4 hours as they used to be. When a midwife is doing an
internal examination she is checking:
*The length and consistency of the neck of the womb. A none labouring neck
of the womb is about 3-4cm long and hard, it starts to soften and thin out
as you go into labour until it is paper thin.
*The dilatation of the neck of the womb. How wide open it is.
*The presenting part. What part of the baby is coming down into the pelvis
first, head or bottom.
*The position of the presenting part. How far down in the pelvis it is and
which way is the baby facing.
*They also check to see if your waters have gone.
As you can see there is quite abit to do. Vaginal examinations take a little
bit of skill and experience to perform, it took me quite a few attempts as a
student to find what I was looking for. I did perform a vaginal examination
on myself with my last baby as I had been having very strong contractions on
and off through the night and I did not know whether to call the midwife. I
did manage to do it on the loo and found I was nearly fully dilated. Now
that sounded weird now i have admitted to that!
A membrane sweep involves passing a finger through the neck of the womb and
sweeping around the mambranes releasing them and hopefully stirring up some
of the labour hormones to get you into labour. It would be very difficult or
impossible to do one of these on your own.

the sweep - they put 2 fingers in n literally sweep them across the neck of your womb to try n break membranes away from it which help start labour, some people find they work others dont, they rekon you should go into labour within 48hours. i had one and found it worked , well it may have been a co-incidence i was 10 days over due when i went into labour! it didnt hurt just a bit uncomfy :) but i would say defo worth havinh one, i wouldnt do it yourself though eek, plus its more effective once you are already late i think... good luck take care :)

Hey, they are feeling for the neck of ur womb or cervix to see if it has started to open yet! No idea about the sweep! But to be honest i don't think i'd wanna start poking about or letting anyone else that doesn't know what they're doing!! lol

what is the midwife feeling for when she does your internal to see how dilated you are? how do they do the sweep? isnt it at all possible to do it yourself?? hehe, sounds weird now ive said it out loud.