Despite what is known about the risk of routinely inducing the birth process simply for being pregnancy past 41 weeks, it is common practice in North America.
Routine induction just for being past your “due date” of 40 weeks is not safe, necessary, or mandatory. Depending on who your medical provider is, induction may be presented to you as something that “has to” be done, or something that it would be unreasonable to question, but this is not the case.
According to a 2018 review of Induction of Labor, “clients with uncomplicated postdates pregnancies should be offered full support in choices that will allow them to enter spontaneous labour. A policy of expectant management to 42+0 weeks following an informed choice discussion is the most appropriate strategy for clients who wish to maximize their chance of normal birth.” (Source)
Inducing labor is a major medical intervention that should not be taken lightly. It is very common to give birth past your “due” date of 40 weeks, and also extremely common to birth past 41 weeks. You aren’t an anomaly if you are 41 weeks along and still pregnant, you are very much a variation of normal, and don’t need to be automatically treated with very serious medical interventions due to being “overdue” alone.
Here is what is known about induction:
“growing concerns about induced birth has led the national body defending doctors accused of negligence to warn of “catastrophic injury” or death for babies when inductions go badly.” (Source)
“clients with uncomplicated postdates pregnancies should be offered full support in choices that will allow them to enter spontaneous labour. A policy of expectant management to 42+0 weeks following an informed choice discussion is the most appropriate strategy for clients who wish to maximize their chance of normal birth.” (Source)
“women who were induced were generally less satisfied with aspects of their care and significantly less likely to have a normal delivery.” (Source)
“Potential risks of induction include increased rate of operative vaginal delivery, Caesarean birth, excessive uterine activity, abnormal fetal heart rate patterns, uterine rupture, maternal water intoxication, delivery of preterm infant due to incorrect estimation of dates, and possibly cord prolapse with artificial rupture of membranes” (Source)
Induction prior to post-term was associated with few beneficial outcomes and several adverse outcomes. This draws attention to possible iatrogenic effects affecting large numbers of low-risk women in contemporary maternity care. According to The World Health Organization, expected benefits from a medical intervention must outweigh potential harms. Hence, our results do not support the widespread use of routine induction prior to post-term (41+0-6 weeks) [prior to 41 weeks plus 6 days] (Source)
The evidence available to date about the comparison of expectant management to induction of labour for postdates pregnancy is
conflicting and not easily comparable due to different study protocols and inadequate study size to detect rare outcomes. (Source)