For those of you keenly following my greatest distraction, Jacqui is now officially two weeks overdue. She’s feeling fine, and all the signs are good (good amniotic fluid index, no signs of foetal distress), but there has been pressure on us to induce labour at this point.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading Mark Burgman’s new book, Risks and Decisions for Conservation and Environmental Management.

Reading this book makes me particularly sensitive to issues of risk and uncertainty. It makes me want to question medical professionals when they recommend inducing labour just because there is a general risk associated with letting a pregnancy go on for too long. When we ask what that risk actually is, the answer is always unsatisfying. This is because nobody really knows. Studies are inconclusive, and most articles that discuss this issue begin by stating that it is “controversial”. That, of course, doesn’t help us very much, although I am sceptical of the apparent medical imperative to induce - if there are no signs that anything is going wrong at this stage, why intervene?

I guess we’ll know soon enough.

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