To want labour stopped at 35 weeks?

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Went to triage at 35 weeks at risk of early labour and was told they wouldn’t stop it at this stage. Luckily it wasn’t early labour but if it was, would I be able to request them trying to stop labour, due to the risks to the baby of being born early? Is this standard procedure? Or is it something like the drugs they give you to stop labour become dangerous at 35 weeks?

I Have no idea about stopping early labour but I can tell you that two doses of pethidine completely stopped my induced labour and I had to be induced again OP.

Well if early labour starts again and this time it doesn’t stop on its own then ask them about steroids to mature the baby’s lungs. Ideally you need min 24hrs from 1st injection to delivery. So it’s something you could ask the consultant about now as a prophylactic measure, though hopefully labour won’t start again. But the steroid injections would lessen the risk of RDS.

They were not prepared to leave me any longer .....I never said it that the size of the baby that dictates whether you are full term or not. Not quite sure how you got that from my comment?

What I said was that I had very big babies due to gestational diabetes.

The team decided that they were not prepared to leave me any longer because the risks are very high for babies born to mothers with gestational diabetes if they are born beyond 37 weeks. But that they (as in 'the professional and qualified' staff) considered a baby born from 36 weeks to be full term.

At 35 weeks in most cases I would expect that the safest thing to do is allow the baby to be born.

@CatsMinion, twins are full term at 37 weeks (and triplets even earlier).

my son was born at 34 weeks and 4 days. I had a placental abruption so he had to come out and was safer out. He's now 3 with no issues at all. He didn't need any special care etc

Thanks for all the advice and positive stories. I wouldn’t go against HCP advice or risk any harm to the baby by delaying labour, I was just trying to understand why they wouldn’t delay it if they could as the doctor didn’t explain it and was very casual about the whole thing. I’ll be getting in touch with the consultant to discuss but this has been useful to think about in the meantime.