Post date pregnancy - 42 weeks and beyond

[mears]

There have been lots of good threads on this. I haven't got the energy to search tonight, but can anyone who has been in this situation tell me what support they got from midwives and what evidence they used to support refusal of induction. Ta

Hi mears

I've just come from a birth where my client was 42+3.

She was due to have a homebirth. The consultant was happy that she wanted to not be induced because both her and the baby were fine.

However, her homebirth mw went on leave and the secondary hb mw wasn't happy with her being 42+ and so went round to assess her (she thought her waters had gone) and transferred her into hospital. First mw was not best pleased when she heard.

On arrival in hospital she was immediately put on a syntocin drip.

As far as I know she didn't have any supporting evidence, she just told them that she refused to be induced.

Sorry that doesn't really answer your query does it?

No it doesn't but it is interesting! I think a number of midwives panic (and doctors) at the 42 + and think dire things are going to happen but I really don't feel like that.

I cannot understand why length of pregnany has not been adjusted in line with technology. In the old days before scanning, I bet many women went over 42 weeks with professionals blissfully unaware!

anyone else?

I went to 42 +2 with DS3. Didn't want induction as I wanted another HB. The support I got from MW varied and seemed personal to each MW. One MW told me I would be being induced, another told me I would need a CS ! . I gathered some evidence from mumsnet that lulu (I think) had posted on here , and told said MW that I would not be being induced or ceasared !. Another just said 'for god sake the baby will come when it's ready' and was highly supportive of sitting it out and monitoring.

They wanted to induce me at 41+3 for absolutely no other reason than the basis that it would take up to 4 days to work .

MW very very supportive and said that the consultants were being ridiculous and in France 41 weeks was considered 'term' and quoted various NICE guidelines. I felt completely reassured and agreed to have an induction booked for 42 weeks as I'm an older mum but again on the basis that i would be reviewed just before and chat to the MW again and either go for it or not depending on monitoring results etc.

The most frustrating thing is that they say comments like 'you will be at an increased risk of stillbirth if you don't let us induce you' but are unwilling to actually give you any data or real numbers or relate anything specifically to YOU. It drives me insane.

I agree thankyouandgn... I was quoted lots of 'statistics' that when I asked for references etc.. they didn't have them !

Mears,

this again doesn't answer your question but is kind of related - my induction was booked for when i was 42+2, and on the day when I phoned up the hospital they told me they were too busy to induce me ! They wanted me to go in for monitoring in the afternoon, and just as the monitoring was finishing a consultant came in and administered a pessary - a number of women gave birth in the afternoon and so the head midwife decided they would start my induction after all.

So the upshot is that my hospital/area isn't too pushy on having inductions. I was glad of this because I wanted a home-birth, but at 42 weeks I started scaring myself silly on the stats and just wanted the baby out!