I turned down induction at 41 weeks. 6 days later my baby was stillborn. AMA

[willowwonder]

This happened over a decade ago now, so while it isn't raw and I am happy to answer questions - please be kind and remember I am a real person.

The background is this was my first pregnancy. I was in my 20s. I did an online hypnobirthing course which presented induction as a thing to be avoided at all costs. As I approached and then passed my due date, I saw a lot of info online around how a full term pregnancy is anything up to 42 weeks. I read stories of women declining induction and some even having their babies at 43+ weeks.

So when I had my 41 week midwife appointment, I was quite relaxed about declining induction. It was presented to me in a very optional way too - I think she said "we can book you in for induction now, or wait and hopefully it will happen naturally in the next few days". So I didn't feel like I was staunchly refusing medical advice.

I think that the bigger contributing factor was that I never had any continuity of care, the midwife at that appointment was one I had never seen before. Maybe something could have been picked up if I was being cared for by someone who knew me?

Saying that - obviously if I had been induced at 41 weeks, my daughter would likely have lived.

Very similar story here - nobody suggested induction for my 11 year old until I was 12 days over - as I'm that's when they said we should think about booking you in, not when they were going to do it. Then he turned up that night naturally.

So I really don't think you should see this as you doing something wildly irresponsible or anything - sounds like you were given a fairly neutral option and you'll obviously never know if it would have been different.

I'm so sorry for your loss and I hope you're doing well.

This is awful. I’m so sorry that you went through this.

OP, it was not your fault and you are not 'accountable'. It is a terribly sad thing to have happened.

My DD was born naturally at 42 plus 3. Very fast birth, fortunately I was already in the hospital waiting for them to get round to the induction.

But they certainly wouldn't have induced at 41 weeks, I did aak

Gosh, this has made me terribly sad, I'm so sorry for your loss @willowwonder , what a terrible thing to happen, and how hard for you to carry around that wondering and emotion about whether you made the right choice for all this time.

I genuinely believe no one deliberately makes unkind or poor decisions in patient care, but the number of stories where I have heard women are 'advised' about one thing or another during pregnancy and birth, and how they almost always feel to blame if something goes wrong is heartbreaking. Different practitioners will advise different things dependant on the year, the policy, their clinical view etc - but the truth is no one can know what will happen.

I made my own choices too under what I thought was informed consent and I bitterly regret some of them. My son has a developmental birth injury and I have severe physical injuries from his birth and I always think I should have chosen a different way. Please know you're not alone, and you made choices out of love.

So sorry OP.

The NCT course I attended was very concerned with ways to avoid induction, ways to avoid any kind of intervention and as that suited my outlook I didn’t really question it. I was with a (wonderful) team of home birth midwives, too, who were keen on the same message. So I didn’t think twice when my baby being 6 days overdue. Which isn’t a lot but I was at the ‘last minute’ end of our childbearing years and when born the doctors said he looked like a baby who was far more overdue and ideally would have been born a week earlier. Placenta deficiency I think.

Did the hospital hold any sort of Inquiry into what happened?

That is so devastating, I'm so sorry for your loss, what an absolutely awful thing to go through. And your update where they saw there was no heartbeat and sent you home? Unforgivable.

I'm wondering if there was any kind of monitoring later in pregnancy? I ask because I had both my babies late, 1st went into labour 42 weeks exactly and 2nd time I was induced at 41+6. It was a hard decision, however for both of them I had scans at 36 weeks which was reassuring and my midwives explained the importance of daily kick counting and how to do it. It sounds like you weren't given any kind of support in how to assess whether to induce, whether you felt baby was OK etc, and were just kind of left to it with no advice. Would you agree?

Same here for my 19yr old, our second child. Think I got to nearly 42 weeks and they said I’d have to come in for daily monitoring the next week if I didn’t want an induction. No one had mentioned induction being an option at this point, I’d have been keen to smoke them out as I was huge and fed up with it! They arrived that night though so beat them to it. At no point did anyone suggest anything might be getting precarious. It was nearly 20 years ago though and I was 28 and had had an easy first birth.

Im so sorry for your loss.
This happened to my closest friend after an experience similar to yours.
My friend said she wished she had pressed for evidence and risk and benefits of induction v waiting at 41 weeks.
The evidence for induction in this situation is available but at the end of the day the choice remains a personal decision, but you can only give informed consent if you are advised of the evidenced based risks v benefits.
Be kind to yourself.
If someone you loved was in the situation you were ,what advice would you give?

You're doing so well OP. Even with time this has to be so hard ❤️

I'm so sorry OP. And to hear how you were treated following this is just appalling ❤️
Please know it wasn't your fault. You made a decision which felt right at the time, a lot of people would've made the same decision.

I am so sorry for your loss.

I saw someone else did this on tiktok recently and despite warnings she had the same outcome unfortunately.

I am so sorry for your loss, op.

I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m glad you have been able to find some sort of peace with what happened. I can see how you hold yourself somewhat accountable while simultaneously understanding it as an accident. That really sounds to me like a healthy way to process it all.

You say you were in your twenties and I’m struck by how young that really is. I also had my first baby in my (late) twenties, and I look back and think how idealistic and naïve I was. I was also heavily into natural birth ideas, and would very likely have made the same choice as you had I been offered induction. One of my NCT group refused induction and went into labour at 43 weeks- her baby was fine, and those were the sorts of stories I sought out and celebrated as I was very keen to avoid intervention. Luckily it wasn’t an issue as I went into labour at 41 weeks and all went well.

I’d like to ask how your partner felt through it all- did they support you in declining induction, and how did they react to what happened? I hope you had support and not blame from them. But that is quite a personal question and perhaps not something you’d want to answer, which I would completely understand.

Yes a hospital did this to my friend. She was at 37 weeks, went for a regular internal appointment. No heartbeat found so they did scan and told her that her son had died and ring them to arrange induction in a couple of days. They wouldn't even phone her husband for her( this was before the days of everyone having mobiles)

I’m so sorry for your loss and you are so very brave ❤️

I’m so so sorry for your loss OP and appreciate you sharing your story. I’m glad you’ve made peace with yourself. There are so many different avenues and options at that point in pregnancy and none of them perfect or guaranteed. You made the choice you thought was best for your baby and you.

I got encouraged to have an induction but refused and instead chose to have a c-section. Based on things they found out once they opened me up it turns out if I had listened to them and had an induction my child and I could have both died (I most likely would have). I thank my lucky stars for this complete fluke every single day.

You couldn’t have known, nobody has a crystal ball not even the most experienced doctors.

Sending love xxx

Hi op, I have no questions but I want to tell you how brave you are for posting and sharing your story. I’m so very sorry for your loss, pregnancy is such a worrying time, our mental health is also affected which makes it all so much worse.

My second baby was stillborn at 27/28 weeks (I was 23 at the time). I felt awful because for days I'd been feeling movement but it was him moving around inside me rather than his movements. By the time I felt something wasn't right, it was far too late. It wasn't a great experience finding out either - they'd had to get a radiographer in from home who was clearly very pissed off about it, and she bluntly told us the baby was dead and did we want to look. They had no beds for induction and DH had to phone up the next day quite forcefully as by that stage, I was completely freaking out and I also knew that the longer the baby was in there, the less chance there was of finding the cause. We did have a post mortem but there was no cause of death found. That tortured me for a very long time - there had to be a reason. I blamed myself for years after - if I'd registered that the movements weren't right, if I hadn't taken antibiotics the week before for a UTI. And then somehow came peace with it all... I've just accepted he died for a reason, yes, but we just don't know why and there was clearly something very wrong. I've got 3 beautiful daughters who I would like to think I'm a better mother to had I not had a loss and realised how precious they all are.

I'm very sorry for the loss of your daughter, OP. It changes you in ways you can't ever imagine and it's awful there are so many of us with these stories

I am so sorry for your loss 💔

It could have easily been me. I developed pre-eclampsia in week 37 but unfortunately the consultant at the hospital in Sweden I was booked with was rabidly (stupidly IMHO) pro-natural birth at all costs. So not only did I go to term with pre-eclampsia but I went 2 weeks overdue. I remember a huge row at 10 days overdue when I wanted to be induced, the midwives at the specialist midwifery unit wanted induction - but the consultant said no.

In the end I went into labour at 14 days overdue. I think we were both lucky to survive as the 27 hour labour was horrendous. DD wasn't breathing at birth and went to NICU and I went to emergency surgery, HDU and multiple blood transfusions.

The hospital policy at the time was to allow women to go up to 3 weeks overdue and I know 3 women who did go 3 weeks overdue and their babies lived however they all had enormous babies: 11lb 2, 12lb 12 and 13lb 8!

It was also one of the hospitals involved in the abandoned SWEPSIS study of delayed induction - the study was abandoned after 6 babies died.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/oct/28/post-term-pregnancy-research-cancelled-babies-die-sweden

I’m sorry for your loss ❤️

How do you feel when you see women online spreading misinformation? I saw a woman today who was showing signs of infection at her 38 week midwife appointment but declined a blood test because she thinks they’ll push “needless interventions”. I feel so sad that American bollocks has infiltrated our healthcare system.

@willowwonder I wanted to say how sorry I am, I also suffered a stillbirth at full term (38+5) and there is nothing like the pain it brings. No pressure to do so but if you would like to share your daughter's name I would love to know.
Mine was much more recently as it happened last May, there were many factors that played into my loss and the hospital have taken responsibility but I have held a lot of guilt since then thinking I should have gone in for more monitoring and maybe it would have been different.
I have since had a baby girl and it was an extremely fraught pregnancy and tbh I worry a lot every day.
I guess my question is how it feels for you now so much time has passed, on some days it still feels like yesterday to me and I wonder how and hope that it becomes less intense when I think of my son. Sending love 💕

I didn't want to read and not say that I am very sorry for the loss of your beautiful baby girl. Many people go to 42 weeks or longer, without issue. I went 14 days and 10 days over on mine before I was induced - both times with doctor's agreement and without daily monitoring. You and your baby were very unlucky. It was nothing you did, or the choice that you made. Please don't blame yourself. Thinking of you both xxx

I gasped in horror when I read the title of your thread but thank you so much for sharing and talking about this dreadful event. Its so valuable, I had a cry for you and your beautiful daughter and I am now so happy to read that you've gone on to have three more children and come to terms with what happened.

I’m so sorry that this happened. Thanks for sharing your story.