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.

Well done OP for being brave enough to speak about this. I (willingly) went to 42 weeks with DC1. I refused induction up until that point and was booked in to be induced on the day I ended up going into labour. I was incredibly scared of childbirth and I think I wasn’t mentally ready to give birth until the day DC1 arrived. It felt like the right decision at the time but looking back I do feel quite alarmed at my decision making, mainly because it was from fear of childbirth and not necessarily from a medical standpoint. I had a doula who was supportive and also did hypnobirthing which I think gave me confidence that my body would do it when it was ready. I still believe that to a degree but I also don’t know if it was the right decision or not. I was just lucky that DC1 arrived ok.

I don’t really have a question but I do want to say that I hope you don’t blame yourself for what happened ♥️ We make the best decisions we can in the moment and any decision a pregnant mother makes is made only with love for her baby.

Yes exactly. You need to know the statistics and make your own decision. Blaming midwives or natural birth advocates doesn't help and is following your own ideology. Even calling it fast and loose is you putting your own ideology on it, and blaming women. women are not to blame if they think that a 0.1222% chance of their baby being still born is low. It is low. I am willing to take those odds. It doesn't make me fast and loose. They can't induce absolutely everyone at 40 weeks.

It wasn't a right decision or a wrong decision. Your chance of your baby dying was 0.1222%. still very very low. These stories are very scary, but a still birth is very hard to predict, and most will turn out ok. They should spend time researching why these babies die so that they can prevent it for more women so we know how to solve it instead of just blindly wondering if it will happen to us. I know someone who went through it twice before they researched why, and all she needed to do was taken a pill during pregnancy to prevent it happening again. Imagine the anguish saved if they knew that earlier. A simple test was all that was needed. Obviously for her, her chance was statistically greater.

Thank you for sharing your story.

Ive spent my morning sobbing in outpatients with a big choice to make. Basically I was high risk due to increased pressure found on my Doppler and suspected slow growth ( which the growth they now think was an mis calculation) I have a planned induction tomorrow. My newest scan today showed perfect growth and normal Doppler.

My midwife said we don’t need to induce a healthy baby. I said I was worried either way about forcing a baby to come early ( 38 weeks) and worried about waiting and something tragic happening as I’m not confident in movements all the time. We agreed a plan to wait another week with daily monitoring however the doctor said no she still recommends an induction tomorrow ( wouldn’t come down to speak to me ). Midwife who wasn’t keen on induction said that I could go against medical advice and decline. Through many sobs i said I couldn’t just incase something unrelated terrible happened I’d blame myself ( I lost a pregnancy last year) my friend also lost a overdue baby last year.

Its so so hard to make these giant decisions .

OP, I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing your story.

@Sleepysleepycoffeecoffee Getting into the prayer position is also vital if your waters break if you have higher fluids and your baby isn't in the head down position, if they are transverse (lying across), because the pressure of the fluid can cause the placenta to be delivered first.

Ironically, the only time I was actually given the information to make an informed choice about birth was when I got given a fact sheet by my consultant with all the statistics as I had to decide whether to go for a VBAC after a crash section or go for an elective section. We need to know the facts to make the decision, it can be delivered sensitively but it's still important.

I didn't find NCT helpful either. They are too dogmatic about natural birth and breastfeeding. I'm all for going the natural way but not with taking risks in childbirth. It's too dangerous. Before modern maternity care, women's life expectancy was lower than men's because of the dangers of childbirth. The risk of stillbirth at 22 in 18,000 vs 2 in 18,000 is still high. I wouldn't take a 1 in 1000 risk with something like that.

Does that sound wacko? I think most people go into theatre and have operations on their own don't they? Their loved ones don't go on the operating room. The Dad giving skin to skin sounds normal. What else would he be doing?

For a c-section, the dad can be in the theatre as long as it is under spinal block for anaesthetic. They can't be in theatre is if it's under general anaesthetic as they are there to support the mother and she would be unconscious. I've experienced both of these scenarios.

Update? Hope all goes well 🙏❤️

That’s what my dh was doing when I was taken to theatre after the birth of my first. I was awake with a spinal but much much much happier knowing our baby was being cuddled by his dad than if he’d dumped the baby and wanted to be in theatre with me.

So sorry for your loss, OP. It must have been so hard on you
I had an elective c-section solely because I was concerned about going over my due date, or being induced (or not). It got rid of the uncertainty and I was lucky in that it was a very pleasant experience.

My question is, if not too hard to answer, was your next pregnancy difficult, mentally speaking? How did you cope?

I'm so sorry for your loss OP. I think the care was obviously lacking. I was induced at just over 41 weeks and ds was distressed and covered in meconium. Before being induced I had one Dr telling it was necessary and another telling me there was no need so it's not ever really simple to just say follow medical advice.

Also that doctor not even speaking directly to you? Appalling.

Hello, I’m awake in the middle of the night having lost my baby at 41+2 six weeks ago and just found your post. I was due to be induced the following day as current NHS guidelines are to start at 41+3. (I had been at the Midwifes the morning she died for a third sweep attempt. We are still waiting for post mortem results but it is most likely that my daughter died when I went into labour naturally that evening due to placenta failure. I found out she had died when I went into hospital with contractions.)

I feel exactly the same as you: that the risks of going overdue were not clearly explained by my midwife. I was so scared of induction after going to Bump & Baby classes and hearing the stats about rates of intervention after induction, that it was only these stats that were in my mind, not the stillbirth figures. (I should add that the intervention stats only came up after somebody in the class asked for them) I also listened to a popular hypnobirthing book and I will forever be angry at the mantra “My baby will come when my baby is ready”.

I was seen as low risk throughout even though my age (36) deems me high risk at a different hospital down the road.

I will be haunted forever by the thought that if I’d just opted for the induction to happen one day sooner I would have been rigged to CTG monitoring and she probably would have lived.

I feel strongly now that I don’t want people to be scared of induction as even if birth is more painful, nothing can be as painful as your baby dying.

I'm so so sorry for the loss of your darling daughter.

You're absolutely right, the wrong risks are emphasised. It's like saying more people get bitten by rabbits than sharks so watch out for rabbits. But not many rabbit bites are fatal. And it feels like the warnings are the same re inductions vs very late pregnancy.

I am so so sorry to read your post. Thinking of you and your lovely little girl.
Please don’t blame yourself, you aren’t to blame and you couldn’t have fixed this even if your brain wants to go back and re-do.

I hope you are able to take each day at a time, there will be better days ahead xxx

I'm so sorry for your loss Livy, I bet your baby girl was beautiful 💕 I think these views of pregnancy yoga instructors etc should be made illegal. They cannot advise women on important medical procedures just because of an ideal birth plan. Shame on them all.

livy156

I'm so very sorry.

I mean get a book out from the library, google it. It’s all out there. Eliane Glaser’s book is very good on this.

Normally when people make a point online in a discussion they bother to explain what the point is. 😄

I’m not going to manually type out the entire founding history of the NCT for you when I’m in the pub and there are perfectly good properly written sources!! But trust me, it is mind boggling and very worth reading up on!

This is the most upsetting of your posts op.

I'm so very sorry for what you went through. Thank goodness your mum stepped in.

I hope sharing this has helped in some way.💐

Being sent home is just awful.