Can you go overdue with VBAC?

[Pawez]

2nd baby! 1st DS is 18mo, will be 2 when I have this baby

my first c section was smooth. Elective as he was breech

i want to try for VBAC if possible but 2 factors I’m wondering are

1. would they make me be induced early and monitor me? Due to scar rupture risk?
2. would they maybe do this as DS was big (9lb 2 and 3 days early) so I could have another big baby

or would they let me run over as long as really? If I were to go overdue

I had a C-section for breech DC2 - I had a really tough time with it, lost a lot of blood and reacted badly to the drugs, so was very keen to avoid another C-section for DC3. DC3 (21 months after DC2) ended up being very big (estimated 9lb6 when making decisions, turned out to be 10lb) and was still not budging at 40+9. My consultant was happy enough for me to wait that long for induction. I was induced and it went very smoothly - definitely my most positive birth of my 3.

They are a little against induction for a vbac - I think they won't give pessaries to open cervix but can use a balloon (I didn't need either in the end, they just broke my waters). I was told they would be slower to put me on a drip and wouldn't give me more than a very low dose of oxytocin, so chances of success are smaller. I did have monitoring all the way through.

It's 20 years this week since my first VBAC so it's quite possible things have changed if course, but at that time the advice I was given was that induction - particularly with prostacyclin pessaries- increased the risk of scar rupture significantly. I was told that if baby needed to be born before I went into labour I'd probably be better off having another section.
I did go overdue quite significantly- 10 days with DC2 and 14 days with DC3 - and was going in for daily monitoring once I was more than a few days overdue. But did go into labour spontaneously and have relatively straightforward births first time. Well, DC2 was delivered by forceps after a long labour, but not unusual for a first labour (I didn't go into labour with DC1) and DC3 was a typical kind of fast second labour. I was fortunate to have a very supportive obstetrician who was very focused on me as an individual and not on arbitrary time limits. He actually came in when I was in labour with DC2 even though he wasn't on duty as he knew that the on call consultant would be wanting me to have a section if I hadn't given birth within a few hours of going into labour. I know that with different staff I would probably have been pushed in a very different direction so think I was very lucky.

I went over but it ended in an emcs as vbac wasn’t successful