Any older expectant mums Around?

[Melly41]

yeah, i dont feel that worried because i had a full term baby very healthy only 15 months ago and i dont have any risk factors i really dont think my placenta is going to fail on the dot of 40 weeks! also if they keep monitoring they can keep an eye on blood flow etc. I would rather go in every day after 40 weeks for montioring than feel pressured into intervention and regret it after. I'm still considering homebirth also

You need to do what feels right for you....its your body afterall. I agree your placenta wont suddenly fail at 40 weeks. Homebirth sounds fab. Id love a waterbirth but not sure how DH feels and i want it to be a joint decision. X

 

[anaphil]

Hi! I'm 37 and pregnant with my second and I was actually starting to feel really lonely and left out because everyone my age it seems is done having babies, so its really nice to find this thread! Obviously 37 (or 42 for that matter) isnt old by any standard but the fact that there are higher risks associated with age etc just makes it feel bad sometimes! xx

 

[Red_eric]

Really helpful to read all this. I have an appointment with the consultant at the end of March- I’ll be about 21 weeks and I’ll have had my 20 week scan the week before. I guess that they’ll discuss possibility of induction etc then?

 

[Melly41]

Before my mmc i wss told the consultant was prob going to recommend induction at 39/40 weeks due to risk of stillbirth increasing after 40wks for older mums (midwife told me this at booking appt). They did day that it would only be a recommendation and the choice would still be mine. If my pregnancy progresses i will give it more thought but for me it feels a long way off....you need to do whats right for you and balance the pros/cons. Anyone else been recommended to take low dose asprin from 12 weeks due to age? Xx

 

[GBLiz]

Before my mmc i wss told the consultant was prob going to recommend induction at 39/40 weeks due to risk of stillbirth increasing after 40wks for older mums (midwife told me this at booking appt). They did day that it would only be a recommendation and the choice would still be mine. If my pregnancy progresses i will give it more thought but for me it feels a long way off....you need to do whats right for you and balance the pros/cons. Anyone else been recommended to take low dose asprin from 12 weeks due to age? Xx

not been recommended to but i did wonder why the homebirth midwife asked if i was on aspirin. My blood pressure is always low and i think my blood pretty thin anyway judging by how long my arm bleeds for after a blood test lol!!!

I did some research into stillbirths (horrible but necessary!). The risk is doubled for older mums BUT we are talking from 0.4% to 0.8% so the relative risk is still so tiny! when you consider that for our age the risk of both miscarrying from the start and of Downs was about 40%..we are talking TEEENY risk here given what our eggs have overcome!!. But teeny risk that has big consequences which is why they prefer to induce. However , i feel the disavantages of early induction - even 39 weeks- for a baby who wasnt ready to be born then- is not worth it. (more likely to have breathing problems allergies etc). that is why i will be saying no to induction unless there is a better reason by then. Now my pregnancy last year i had agreed to the induction soon after term because the pregnancy was so awful and i was struggling to cope with it. (he cane on due date in the end so avoided it) But this pregnancy is different so my choice will be different.

 

[Red_eric]

I’m taking aspirin...

I haven’t even started thinking about all this, so it’s really helpful to hear different views.

 

[Melly41]

Did they recommend you take asprin? Im guessing as we are older it is to reduce risk of pre eclampsia?

 

[Red_eric]

Yes - the midwife told me to take it from 12 weeks- to prevent pre-eclampsia.

 

[gesic]

I had to take the baby aspirin and also 5mg folic acid (on top of pregnancy vitamins)

 

[GBLiz]

is that cos you had higher blood pressures to start with or does being older increase the risk of pre eclampsia? it was never suggested to me at all to take aspirin in this or my last pregnancy

 

[gesic]

No I have never had high blood pressure (always low end of normal), it was suggested both as a precaution regards pre eclampsia and due to recurrent miscarriage (even though I never had any tests with previous mc's) it was seen by the consultant as something that could be beneficial and certainly not something in my case that carried any risk.

 

[GBLiz]

no, there's no risk in taking it. just strange how some are recommended to take it and some not. I had 2 mc before these last two pregnancies but it still wasnt brought up

 

[GBLiz]

had another growth scan - to check baby is growing along her percentile. I knew she was on the smaller side but didnt expect to find out she has plummeted down from 10th to below the 5th percentile in only 13 days ..... i have to go back on monday to check cord blood flow and fluid (which was all fine today) and the consultant may recommend me to go on steroids in case the baby needs to come out early. and another scan booked for next week. urk!!! I know scans can be inaccurate so hoping the scan next week doesnt see a further drop. not too anxious as i am being well monitored and baby is very active but i just didnt expect this !!! a quick google of this has very varied outcomes of when the baby is induced so i really have to just wait and see what they say next week.

 

[Spriddy7]

I don't buy the older being higher risk for P.E as I was 20 when my son was stillborn due to it. I was then 22 when I had my daughter and 34 with my son both were pregnancies with aspirin as is this pregnancy but at 34 I had absolutely no signs of starting with it where as both 20 pregnancies I had it. Personal feelings only x

 

[Sunflower1]

Hi, I'm 42 and 5 weeks pregnant. Lovely to see lots of you of a similar age. I'm trying to avoid all the stats on over 40s...apparently they are based on research from the 1960s so probably not accurate anyway.

 

[GBLiz]

I've had a rollercoaster few weeks being told repeatedly the baby is 'not growing' and the placenta is failing so a case of being monitored until such a time as they need to whip the baby out. On Monday I was advised to take the steroids to mature baby's lungs in case they need to deliver pre-36 weeks. I said i would rather hold off til the next growth scan (which was 3 days later) because i felt sure my baby was healthy and i didnt want to take something unless it was definitely necessary. At the growth scan the sonogrpaher said it was a completely normal sized baby ! So she had gone from 10th percentile to below 5th in 2 weeks, then 2 weeks later had rocketed to 25th percentile. All the emergency montioring is OFF, Mamma knows best, and the homebirth could be back on after all!

 

[Sunflower1]

I've had a rollercoaster few weeks being told repeatedly the baby is 'not growing' and the placenta is failing so a case of being monitored until such a time as they need to whip the baby out. On Monday I was advised to take the steroids to mature baby's lungs in case they need to deliver pre-36 weeks. I said i would rather hold off til the next growth scan (which was 3 days later) because i felt sure my baby was healthy and i didnt want to take something unless it was definitely necessary. At the growth scan the sonogrpaher said it was a completely normal sized baby ! So she had gone from 10th percentile to below 5th in 2 weeks, then 2 weeks later had rocketed to 25th percentile. All the emergency montioring is OFF, Mamma knows best, and the homebirth could be back on after all!

Well done for trusting your instincts!

 

[BabyWomble]

Hi all, i’m 38 and will be 39 when I give birth. My GP was very abrupt at 5 weeks when I found out I was pregnant saying I was high risk to be pregnant now and discussed screening before anything else! I already suffer with anxiety so this wasn’t a pleasant experience. Was glad to get out of there. Thankfully my booking appointment went much better!

 

[GBLiz]

38 isnt even that old! When i see 42 years 9 months come up on the screen i have to check myself that thats really my age! I've had quite a good experience though with the nurses saying "Oh you're not old" when i mention my geriatric-ness " and because i have no other health issues and i'm not overweight at all they are generally pretty pleased with me.

 

[Melanie3103]

I'm 42 in a couple of weeks, and I'm 6wks today... hi !!!

I've a 4yr old, took us 3.5 yrs to conceive this one... xx