being induced because of my age

[kaysthename]

My doctor wants me to be induced tomorrow because I am 42 - this is my third baby and I had normal vaginal deliveries with the other two. I am pretty worried about being induced my first child was a long labour not progressing well - they broke my waters and I thought I had died! So I am really dreading them doing that before I am even dilated. My Bishops Score yesterday was 5 out of 10 so perhaps i am allready starting? Anyone any similar experiences? Apparantly it is the hospital policy to induce on maternal age.

someone on the march 07 antenatal thread had this

you can refuse induction if you want

when is your due date?

bizarre. you can refuse to be induced if you want. did they give any other reason than your age as to why they want to induce??? seems a bit odd if there are no other probs

How far along are you? Seems v. odd to induce 'because of hospital policy' and maternal age. You should be treated as an individual patient, not a statistic. And I'm sure the NICE guidelines and Royal College of Obs and Gynae guidelines say age alone is NOT a reason for induction. You can look the NICE guidelines on maternity up online, it's something simple like www.nice.co.uk

Iwent 40+11 with DD1 - when I was 41 (and went into labour naturally, although was due for induction the next morning!). They said that there was no real evidence for inducing earlier on maternal age, although they did keep an eye on me (I went for regular CTG monitoring). Unless they have any specific concerns you could ask to just be monitored regularly.

I just spoke to the midwife at the hospital and she suggested having a sweep tomorrow and putting off induction for a day. I told ob that baby had slower movements and apparantly that plus age is the reason for induction. But I am sure movements slow down anyway at this stage and I had a trace this morning which showed normal heartbeat.

that sounds like a good compromise.

kay - is it queen charlottes? they told me that their policy is to induce at 38 weeks for women over 40 (I was 43). I refused unless there was actual medical grounds and gave birth to a big healthy boy at 41 weeks

Induction won't work unless the bay is ready to come and can lead to all sorts of complications/risks. I had a sweep at 41 weeks which started labour off.

Will try and find the thread I started on it...

'scuse typos - chubby baby on knee

If your bishops score is 5 it sounds like your baby is on its way already - or at least seriously thinking about! On a positive note one lot of gel will probably get you well on it's way (every time I've been induced I've only had a score of 1, and that was sometimes at the 2nd lot of gel too!)

kay - my thread on same subject - some good advice on there

mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=49&threadid=224901#4538436

Hoping that sweep tomorrow will bring on natural labour - fingers crossed - due date is 23rd Sept

Oh, for heaven's sake, so they are actually trying to induce you early?! Merely because of your age? How on earth do they think the human race survived this far...

kay have a look at my thread below re induction

Not sure how far beyond your edd you are kay, but I had ds1 when I was 39 and ds2 at 40 (nearly 41) and the docs were happy on both occasions for me to go to at least 42 weeks, despite the fact that I'd had a cs with ds1 (I wanted a vbac with ds2, though it didn't work out). In the event, ds1 came a few days after edd and ds2 a day early, but all this to say that I don't think age alone shouldbe a good enough reason for inducing.

I'm 42 Kay & although I'm having growth scans this is partly due to thyroid probs too rather than just age. As long as things progress ok consultant hasn't mentioned induction due to age alone, only if growth problems & fingers crossed none so far.
Hope it's happening soon for you.

Thanks for all your messages - feeling quite a lot of strong Braxton Hicks so really hoping things start naturally. I looked on hundreds of websites for info on age and induction and couldnt find anything so this discussion has really helped.