What is overdue and WHY the hassle when it happens?

[StarlightMaJesty]

Okay, I've seen and researched the arguments but, until now, it hasn't been something that has happened to me.

Now that it has, and I am experiencing it first hand, I'm wondering WHY it is such an area for battle.

I mean, I KNOW my rights etc. that no-one can force intervention or refuse hb etc etc. but I also know that this kind of pressure isn't conducive to getting the baby out spontaneosly.

*under 'duress' even!

thisonce you are right that you were a novely i had the same with ds3 even ONCE i was in labour i had a consultant who KEPT coming into the delivery room and he wanted me on the bed and on the moniter etc, he was all for a highly medicalised birth as i was 'so overdue' in the end the midwife politely told him to GO AWAY and that if we needed him she would call him, it turned out that it was quiet that night and i was being 21 days according to them (18 according to me) days overdue was the most interesting case on the board and so he wanted to get involved, i wanted a nice normal active birth, which i got with the midwifes support!

and yes they will tell you they dont 'let' you go that overdue, well its not up to them, as long as you are fully informed it is your choice! but yes they will hastle you and try adn go over the options again and again i was lucky in that by the time i had ds4 the hospital had a lovely PAWS unit a pregnancy and wellbeing suit and you went there for monitering and there were ONLY midwives who did the monitering and checks and were more than happy to let me go as soon as my 20 mins were up and baby looked fine etc :)

I went 40+20 with DS1. He was absolutely fine and not overcooked in the slightest, though he was a whopper (8lb 12oz and I am very small). Apgar 10 . But I think the reason he was so late was that he was in a bad position, and labour was looong and he eventually needed to be pulled out with ventouse. The MW was astonished when I declined induction but to be fair, the consultant she referred me to was fine about me going another week, having explained the risks to me (told me the risk to the baby doubled to I think 2% after 42 weeks but couldn't tell me what the risk was to a baby born via induction) and quite respectful. It was the right decision for me and I was never worried about DS1 as he was incredibly wriggly even in labour - the MWs commented during monitoring.

It's a very individual decision and risk means different things to different people. But it's still YOUR risk and not the doctor or midwife's.

re induction being a process that you have to continue once started, this is true ONCE your waters have been broken and tho they recomend baby out withing 24hrs you can wait longer if you want to, and i know people who have done.

but if your waters havent broken they can stop the process ie if you ahve just had the gel, this is what happened with ds1 i had the gel, two doses of it, it rapidly became apparent i was allergic to it, hyper stimulated uterous, lots of contractions but no dilating! anyway as baby was ok i was monitred and once it all settled down they said i could have a section or i could go home, i went home and waited a few more days tos ee if he woudl come on his own, he didnt so i was then induced via ARM, they hadnt been able to break my waters when i was in previously as i wasnt dilated at all but was by the time i went back in.

they would have preferred me to have ahd the section rather than go home but as scans and monitering showed baby was fine i went home.

Well in that case you should assume lmp started 2 weeks before ovulation.

Basically a 40week cycle is based on the assumption that you start counting 2 weeks before ovulation/fertilisation.

I have 35 day cycle...which hospital never take into account when booking dating scan so get told off for being a week too small and they can't see as much.

Yes, that is exactly what I have done haunted and taken the ovulation date as conception date, but in reality it coukd have been up to 5 days later, which woukd make me not even 40 weeks yet.

I know my mum went 16 days overdue with me and she said the midwife looked at the placenta afterwards and said it was on the point of packing up and looked a funny colour! Gross!

I went 6 days overdue with my DS and that was bad enough waiting for him to make his grand entrance

I really recommend a good long walk to kick start labour, I did 1 hour 45 minutes and it did the trick! I was booked in for an induction 11 days after the edd, but really didn't want to be induced if possible.

I do 3 hours walking a day for the school run, plus more.

Maybe walking is slowing things down

Good luck Starlight. DS was 'overdue' by 11 days according to scan date but mw said he was obvs exactly right, as traces of vernix on him still. I found natal hypnotherapy cd very useful for deep relaxation I'm sure staying relaxed helped me go into labour. I'd say avoid starting controversial mn threads and definitely don't go on aibu! Also see if your dp can keep any mw who are pressurising you at arms length, you need to keep adrenalin levels as low as you can. Wishing you a speedy happy labour

Just waiting for naughty children to sop messing about and DH and I are supposed to go out for a meal

yes go out for a meal, plan something nice, baby is sure to put in an appearance then! good luck :)

I don't have anything to add but just wanted to wish you luck and remind you that no one stays pregnant forever. It's miserable being "overdue" and feeling pressured to be induced but it will end soon. A foolproof way to start labour if you're having a homebirth is to leave the housework for a few days so its really messy when the mws come out, that's what eventually worked for me

i was just wondering if this is ok and not hijacking too much, how do you work out the estimated date of ovulation? my cycles are around 32 days and i think they've given me an edd (next mon) of a few days early, and i would like to work this out to back me up should i need to have the same debate with hcps that starlight is going through...

Bcause HCPs give you an EDD based on scan measurements they never seem to 'get' the ovulation angle. However I think that you're supposed to ovulate 14 days before your next period. So a 28 day cycle person ovulates on day 14, last time I conceived my cycle was 27 days so around day 13 and you would ovulate around day 18.

Star, you know that you don't have to accept any intervention, or can choose to only accept some intervention, etc.

I do think that percentage terms for these kind of events are slightly unhelpful, because it can make something sound incredibly unlikely, when sadly, it is more common than we'd like to think.

I came from the opposite angle. I had induction at 39+6 with DD1 (small for dates on scan...you know the rest!) induction at 35+3 with DD2 (stopped growing for no reason, little madam) and induction at 38+5 with DD3 (low fluid and general slowing of growth).

With DD1 they said they didn't want me to go over. DD2/3 was much more 'meh...we could induce or we could wait and see'.

I'm afraid my mistrust of medical professionals (great, coming from a nurse) meant that I was of the mind of 'just get this baby out of me. Once I can see his/her chest rising and falling, I will know she/he's ok. Until then, you don't know why she's stopped growing/low fluid, etc., and you can't tell me she's going to be ok.

They agreed that they couldn't tell me anything, didn't know why I was presenting as I was, so agreed that inducing was very reasonable!

At the end of the day, they can only tell you what the most up to date research tells them. It's your baby, your life, your pregnancy. Your decision. If you feel, on balance, that your baby is better in than out, then you have the right to resist induction.

Thank you Lougle

Mw appointment tomorrow which it looks more likely I will be attending. She has asked me to bring my birth plan as I think she is concerned about my lack of cooperation with fingers up fanjo!

Hoping this is a good thing. No-one in 3 pgs has ever been interested in my birth plan before I was actually in labour.

Thanks for the positive vibes traffic

Reading very small print so I'm sorry if what I'm saying is irrelevant, for the mum wanting a HB and the midwife couldn't find scan report she was probably wanting to find out where the placenta had attached, ie is it covering the internal os, if it was though that would have been flagged up straight away. Having worked a few shifts on ds as a new st midwife I think the concerns for very overdue babies is the condition of placenta, cord compression and the baby passing lots of meconium as its more mature, and possibly the baby getting quite

How well do midwives estimate the date of delivery?
Elizabeth Stenhouse,DavidWright, AndrewHattersley
and AnnMillward
Midwifery (2003) 19, 125^131 & 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1054/midw.2002.0344

Sorry I know longer have access to the full article

Key conclusions: when LMP is known and the cycle length is 28 days,midwives produce results consistentwith theCESDI formula.However, when the menstrual cycle di¡ers from28 days or LMPis unknown, inaccurate or ambiguous and obstetric ultrasound scan (USS) information is used to calculate the EDD, the midwives show varying degrees of departure from the CESDI
formula.Further, we found that the midwives tended to produce underestimates when calculating GA from EDD.This bias occurs across the range of gestations covered, including early gestations when such biases may have more important medical implications.

Implications for practice:midwives?calculation of EDD and estimation of GA showed both random and systematic errors; in some cases, the errors were so large that they may have importantmedical consequences. If the CESDI-recommended formula for calculating EDD were used there would be improved accuracy and reliability of EDD and thecalculation of GA.

In relation to the assessment of fetal growth,the importance of accurate calculation of EDD has been highlighted in the Fourth Annual
Report of the Confidential Enquiry into Stillbirths
and Death in Infancy (CESDI 1997). The report?s ?Guidance For All Questions? Rapid Response Form (NAB Secretariat 1997) Q10a, Q10b and Q11 recommend adherence to specified criteria for the calculation of EDD:
?EDD = LMP + 280 days - length of cycle - 28 days?:
It further states that if the EDD by USS and the
EDD by LMP agree within seven days the EDD ?by period can be confirmed as the final due date?. However, if the difference is more than seven days
then the EDD ?by scan should be considered as more reliable?.

Traditionally EDD is calculated using an obstetric wheel which is based on Naegele?s rule whereby the EDD is calculated by adding nine months and seven days to the first day of the LMP

For interest

That IS interesting stoatie

Thank you wider

that's very interesting stoatie so to get my date based upon an adjusted cycle length do i just add 38 weeks to the estimated date of ovulation?

starlight hope you don't mind me hijacking, really hoping we both go into labour naturally soon!!!

actually ive just found a calculator online that adjusts for menstrual cycle length- which gives me an edd of 24 june, a whole week out! thats quite frustrating as my consultant appointment at which they will want to book induction is 27 june i don't know how to construct an argument to back up what i want given that whenever ive mentioned this they've always said 'yes but we go on the scan date not the LMP date'. my issue with that is that as far as i know the scan date is based upon length of baby, and dc1 and dc2 (cooking) both have long legs....

I think length is based on rump to crown, but I don't know this.

hmmmm just looked it up and you're right...good thing i checked that out before i started spouting that one to the consultant then

Lol!

It doesn't matter much WHAT you spout sometimes.

I KNEW a topic and evidence inside out and still a GP once looked t me sceptically and told me to stay away from google. I'd actually studied the damn topic .