I Was Pregnant For 10 Months

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"As US midwife Gail Hart points out, the most-cited statistic about post-dates babies (that their risk of stillbirth "doubles after 42 weeks") comes from a 1958 study – a time when mortality rates were 10 times what they are now. Also, as Hart argues, induction is hardly risk-free: it carries higher rates of caesarean section, uterine rupture, foetal distress and maternal haemorrhage."

"As a midwife you know if a baby is truly post-mature by the state of the skin. It's drier and flakier. They look like someone who has been in the water too long." But according to one American study [cited by Gail Hart in Midwifery Today], more than 90% of supposedly "late" babies born at 43 weeks in fact show no signs of post-maturity."

"To most hospitals, Gaskin adds, a lack of symptoms – and the patient's history – is irrelevant: "This habit of making absolute rules that are applied to cases that used to be open to individual treatment has contributed to the dumbing down of maternity care."

This is true in the UK too. I couldn't understand why my doctor was not interested in all the heart monitoring (every two days after 42 weeks) – and all perfect – or in the ultrasound scan. Nor was there any interest in my birth history (two late babies and fast births, which I thought made me a poor candidate for induction). All that mattered were the statistics – from 1958."