Experiences of pregnancy going beyond 42 weeks?

[WhatIsPink]

Anyone who have gone over 42 weeks? I’m currently 41+4, while first child was born 41+6 and then second 41+4. Although very likely this one will come out in the next few days, but if not, wanted to hear anyone’s experience who actually went over 42 weeks, both how to discuss either the hospital and also research on the safety. Hospital is big on induction which I’m not too keen but 42 weeks is a mark which does get me a bit worried.

Ibhonestly dont understand why a "natural" birth is more important than the baby. At 42 weeks the baby is fully formed and very able to be happy outside the body. Why on earth let it stay inside, at increased risk, just so you can have a natural birth?!

Roughly 1 in every 250 babies are stillborn in the UK, and being past 42 weeks puts you at increased risk, and for nothing other than ‘maternal choice’. And that’s in 2026, so the risk is still there.

My longest pregnancy was the smallest baby of the three

Meconium can be a normal part of birth where the baby has been gestating for longer, around 19% of babies born at 40 weeks will have meconium and 27% of babies born at 42 weeks.

There are different types. Older meconium which has stained the colour of the waters is a sign that baby has done a poo in the past as their bowels have developed. The risk of meconium aspiration from this is very low and it isn’t a medal emergency.

Thick, new meconium, done during labour is more concerning as it can be a sign that the baby is in distress. However many more babies will be born in distress and have a low APGAR score without the presence of meconium than babies born in distress with meconium.

If meconium is present the likelihood of baby having Meconium aspiration syndrome (breathing it in) is up to 5%. Of the babies who do breathe it in 95% recover. For MAS to happen the baby needs to be so distressed that they go unconscious and gasp in the womb, this is a very high level of distress that would not go unnoticed during labour.

It's mot exactly the same thing 😂 and the figure o posted was 0.09 not 0.9

I remember attending a friend’s baby’s christening. There was a couple there who were expecting their first child and the wife only had a few weeks to go. We were chatting with them as our baby had the same pram they had bought. A few weeks later I asked my friend if they had had their baby. They had got to 42 weeks and sadly the baby was still born. My friend also had another acquaintance who lost a baby at 42 weeks about the same time. My friend always told pregnant friends after that to never go to 42 weeks

Ah, apologies. But it’s still sending your child in when you know there is a gunman on the loose and it’s 50/50 whether one child is going to be shot dead. You are gambling on the fact that if it happens at all, it won’t be to your child. For no benefit to them at all. Most of us wouldn’t do that.

Now you’re jumping all over the place! 😂 you can’t use 50/50 because none of this is 50/50.

All pregnancies and births carry risks. We can’t avoid that or medically manage it out completely whatever we do. To follow your analogy the gunman is already there.

Individuals with the help of NHS guidance can make decisions on what level of risk they feel comfortable with.

Why are you so desperate not to have an induction?
I really don't understand why people are so against them. They save lives.

One of mine was born at 42 + 2 days, if you go by the scan date (wasn't sure exactly when conceived, so dates were ambiguous). He was only 9 lb, so I question the dates though were were some signs of him being overcooked (skin). Otherwise, there was nothing remarkable about it compared to my others who came during the 40th week. Midwife monitored though I think I'd have had some checking at the hospital if he hadn't come when he did.

50/50 isn't the same as 0.09%?

It’s one of the best ways to understand risk for most people because most people can’t visualise a percentage outcome.

if you are told, you have a 1 in 3 chance of something happening, whether that’s good or bad, it’s much easier to calibrate that if you think of a group you belong to, and imagine that a certain number of that group will experience the event. Then you can decide whether that’s a risk you want to run/how much to get your hopes up.

My experience is that people otherwise think things are more or less likely than they actually are to happen because they aren’t thinking about it in concrete terms.

It’s certainly a technique which has been used with me by medical professionals to ensure understanding - when we had fertility treatment many years ago and they were assessing the chances of success, they said 20% sounds a high percentage but if you imagine in a class of 30 students, all having this treatment 6 will go home with a baby, so you need to be prepared for the fact that 24 won’t and you could be one of the 24.

In the case of the poster I quoted, I just don’t get why any risk of the placenta failing and the baby dying as a result of that failure was considered “worth it”.

You’re at risk of prioritising your birth experience over your baby’s health. That’s not to say that birth experience doesn’t matter, but it’s not everything.

They also cause a lot of unnecessary intervention and problems that wouldn't have been the case if labour was allowed to happen naturally and not on the timetable of the hospital

This. Blunt but so accurate.

I don’t disagree with it being a good way to understand risk but you got the numbers wrong and then when you apologised you said it was 50/50! The analogy only works if you get the number right.

What is actually being weighed up is the difference between the risk of an induction at x gestation and spontaneous labour post 42 weeks. In the metaphor you are always sending the child to a school with a gunman, there isn’t an option without.

Yes twice for various reasons - 42+5 both times and fortunately it was fine, now I’m older and wiser though I would make a different decision

There is some evidence that the placenta starts to function less well after 42 weeks. IIRC, features found in postdates placentae are also found in many of the placentae of stillborn babies.

The other risk related thing is that there is no sure way to predict which babies are most likely to suddenly die via monitoring. Scans and CTGs can tell you how different things look from the last time they saw, but not how likely or how fast things could deteriorate. Things like blood flow to the baby.

However, the risks we are talking about are tiny in number. Most babies who go past 42 weeks will be born healthy.

I got to 43 weeks before they decided it was long enough and induced me. It looked as if the induction was failing until they turned the oxytocin up to full whack, at which point I had three huge contractions and son shot out like a bullet. He was skinny, having started to loose fat, and his skin was peeling, but totally healthy. It was by far the easiest labour I had.

(He was so late, he missed the christening date we’d set ahead of time. We’d fixed the date because his brother was due to go to scout camp, and we wanted it done before he went. We figured out that no baby is ever three weeks late, and thought that even if he were a couple of weeks late, we’d still be ok. We had to ring round all the family the night before to tell them it wasn’t going to happen.)

Did you have a choice or did they say they're just going to do it anyway?

Mine was booked for induction at 42 weeks but I went into labour and had the homebirth I wanted. The placenta was in very poor shape so we dodged a bad outcome.

To me this is crazy, I actually refused to go over 39 weeks with both of mine as there is no benefit vs increased risks, which even if small are not worth it in my opinion. All the doctors I know did the same with their pregnancies.

0.09 out of 1000 is 90.

So if 90 children were going to be shot at a school, you’d be comfortable with that?

I had two inductions. Both of which were not, frankly, particularly pleasant.

In the case of DC 1, the induction was because I had a condition that, if the baby goes past 39 weeks, the chance of still birth increased significantly. Great. Induction it was.

In the case of DC2, I was being induced due to gestational diabetes. But here's the thing - in retrospect, the chances are that if I had NOT been induced, DD might have died or been brain damaged. Even with induction, she didn't want to come out because it turned out the cord was wrapped so tightly around her neck, she simply couldn't move. Her induction involved almost no labour because after just two contractions, she was in such distress they did an emergency c section and saved her life.

Obviously, this is just my experience. But I don't get it. I'll choose a shitty birth experience for myself any day if it means my baby has the best chance of a healthy birth.

the original stat is 0.09% which is very different to 0.09/1000. I don't know which is right.

But I'm being pedantic when actually, i agree. I can't work out the benefit of increasing the risk by keeping the baby inside when there's absolutely no question that baby will be healthy outside.