If you now go into 8-9th month of your pregnancy, you may begin seriously to count your due date. In this modern living, you can cut a couple of weeks for the day of when you should go for delivery. But does delivering baby earlier than should be expected work well? Are there any pros and cons of this option?
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The most beneficial thing from this option is you can set and determine the date of when you have to give birth. This can help you to prepare anything better, because you have known exactly the day of your delivery. But some doctors say that cutting the pregnancy short by even 1-2 weeks may be potential to bring some problems to the newborn.
In general, most pregnancies take about 40 weeks on average (from the day of the last menstruation to the day of delivery). For many years, many people thought that the delivery at 37-38 weeks were safe and fine. But today, many experts believe that the modified delivery even a couple of weeks early can increase the risk of some medical problems to the newborn, according to WebMD.
As more women have carrier and try to plan and schedule their pregnancy as short as possible in order to return to work as soon as possible, it’s now becoming popular to schedule or modify the childbirth rather than wait for the natural delivery to start on its own.
In fact, the number of newborns delivered with early induced labor increases year by year. In 2004, the number of these babies almost double than the number in 1992. While the number of babies born at 39-40 weeks decreases, the number of babies delivered at 36-38 weeks increases drastically.
The early induced labor may help you maintain and improve your productivity. With this option, you can also get a pretty date of birth for your child.
But remember, delivering baby faster than you expect may affect and disconnect the growth process of some important organs of your baby. For instance, your baby may still don’t have fully development of lungs and brain in the time of when your delivery scheduled earlier than should be expected. Furthermore, babies who born with this option may also have an increased risk of certain infections or even death at birth.
Why scheduled delivery may be not safe?
The unnatural scheduled delivery that made too early (earlier than 39 weeks) tend to cause some serious health conditions to baby. The following are some of these medical conditions that often related with the early induced labor:
- Baby is more vulnerable to get a serious infection, and this can be potentially life-threatening.
- Problems related to feeding (breast feeding problem) after giving birth, because baby may get trouble swallowing /sucking.
- Problems related with breathing, because as mentioned before there is a chance for the lungs of baby are still not fully developed.
- Babies delivered even 1-2 week early may have an increased risk of developing hearing & vision problems throughout their life. They are also more likely to become thinner at birth, as a result they will have a harder time keeping warm.
Normal delivery is always much better than unnatural early delivery. But sometime due to some reasons or certain health conditions, your doctor may suggest to you that going full term is not fine for your body.
Early delivery sometime is recommended for pregnant women who have preeclampsia or diabetes or other certain health problems. It may also make sense if your water breaks or if baby completely stop growing. For best decision and more advice, ask your healthcare provider!
(Image credit to Getty Images)
