We found out after the fact that there is no real reason to do anything special until you are 42 weeks overdue. We didn't want to be induced at 40 weeks + 10 days, we wanted to wait, and the local hospital's OB registrar made us sign in the hospital records that we were taking that risk "on our own heads" so to speak. It's only because my wife happens to be one of the midwives there that she was chatting to her friends, who had seen the records and thought it was ludicrous that they had made us sign anything at al, and that this was not common practice. We suspect it was because we were having a planned homebirth...*sigh*

The doctors may scare you by telling you the fetal mortality rate "doubles", although my wife assures me that the fetal mortality rate starts at 0.01%, so that doubling it only increases it to 0.02%.

If you have an ultrasound and there is still plenty of fluid, and the blood flow in the cord is fine, then there's no reason to induce. In the old days, women had a due month, not a due date, because they didn't necessarily have any idea when they were due - and nor do the babies!

The baby will come eventually, we don't often see women walking around 18 years pregnant (and gosh, wouldn't it be crowded when he wanted to have his girlfriend stay over!) Leaving it means you're more likely to have a natural birth, rather than kick start a cycle of intervention that may predispose you to further problems or having to have an assisted birth or caeserean.

You could try an osteopath, to make sure your pelvis is well-aligned, as sometimes the baby may have a little trouble settling into the pelvis if it is misaligned. We think osteopathy has assisted both of our overdue babies! But at the end of the day, one of our neighbours told us, a few days before Olivia was born - "When the apple's ripe, it'll fall." So true...