Has anyone gone into week FORTY THREE of pregnancy?What are the risks?

[TwoPeasOnePod]

Hello everyone, just a few questions about going overdue..Im 40+11 today, booked in for induction on wednesday which I am cancelling because I dont like the odds of EMCS/forceps/ventouse plus higher levels of pain being a probability. Also I was getting myself so worked up about it that I find it hard to believe it would go at all well...Feel a lot better having decided to cancel.

BUT... has anyone gone into week 43 of pregnancy and been ok? What are the risks for the baby compared to the risks of induction? Im currently thinking I should trust in my body, Ive given birth nine days overdue before, and there have been no problems with me or the babys health up to this point. But crossing the threshold into week 43 feels scary, any advice or statistics or personal experiences would be very appreciated to help me assess if I'm doing the correct thing, thankyou folks!

I just wanted to say that you shouldn't necessarily worry about not being able to have a sweep. Not quite as late as you, but when I went for a sweep at 41wks my cervix was closed. I still went into labour naturally a few days later.

Twopeasinapod I just noticed that you gave the increased stillbirth risks. Although relatively low, I would be quite nervous about accepting a quadrupled chance of stillbirth. Dont be put off by the nightmare birth stories. Good and bad births can happen to anyone, regardless of the type of labour they have (I accept risks for forceps/ventouse is higher with induction) however the end result is to have a healthy baby and healthy Mum and in the majority of inductions that is what happens

Somebody posted in a similar thread something about in Sweden not being considered overdue until 42 weeks, allowing you to get to 44???? sorry if I misrepresent what they actually said, perhaps you can look into it.

Hey all, my worries about wk43 were unfounded as she came naturally on day twelve of being overdue, the labour was seven hours from first contraction to birth and no intervention was needed, which means she would have come before the induction if i had chosen to have it!
I had a 2nd degree tear which has been left without stitches to heal naturally, and there were no waters when she was born for some reason, despite them not breaking at any point?! Which was worrying.She was in distress during birth though and there was a lot of thick meconium that she had passed, we were kept on a transitional ward that night so she could be monitored every two hours as she was breathing a bit fast and needed to stabilise her temperature,make sure no meconium had been breathed in etc.

So to all the posters who have said it is not possible to know if they are ok until induction/birth, you are right, as we had no indication that the waters were somehow none existant, luckily she is fine now, we have named her Lola Pearl, and we were home lunchtime the next day (she came at 8.36pm tue night)

So thankyou very much to everyone who has answered with such useful and reassuring posts when I was freaking out in late pregnancy, and good luck anyone in the same boat x

Huge congratulations TwoPeasOnePod!! Sorry to hear it was a little complicated, but so glad you are all home and well. Hope you are recovering well! x

thankyou sarahbuff shes doing just grand now x

Meconium is v common in post date babies - or that's what the midwives told me - I had it with both dd2 and dd3 (41 weekers)

That's weird about the waters - do you think you could have been slowly leaking and not noticed - or lost some in the bath at some oint? Obviously not meconium stained at that point!

Anyway - great that your baby girl arrived and all is well

Aw, so glad she's well. My first pooed when I was in labour and he was wheezy for the first night and had to be warmed up (I do wonder now why they didn't just tell me to put him on my bare chest and wrap him up in a blanket, apparently that will regulate your baby's temp either direction much more effectively). That was the only time I was a bit cheesed off with the staff because they just came into the ward and started wheeling him off, and I had to run after them asking where they were going at which point they told me to warm him up and I was like, "Can I come?!" Not a very considerate thing to do when you've given birth a few hours before and your hubby has gone home and you're on your own (I mean, it's not like I was out of it and they couldn't ask first...) Anyway, pardon for the moan! Are you breastfeeding or FF? If you're bfing, hope that is going well! x

I gave birth at 40+15, was fine.
Baby not post mature, no merconium in waters.
There's a good article in the paper about it here

Oh and Congratulations :) :) :)

I got to 42+2 before I succumbed to induction. Induction failed and had an emergency section at 42+5 (conservative estimates - I actually think I was about 43+3).

Congratulations! :)