Are Due Dates Accurate

Expecting a baby? That date you’ve been given, how about you make it a due month? Honestly, you’ll be so glad that you did!

It’s easy to obsess about that date, it can cause unnecessary anxiety and stress as you approach and pass the big day.

But, did you know that there is a lot of guesswork that goes into due dates and it’s all based on an old outdated method? That’s why less than 5% of babies are actually born on their due dates.

Ultimately every baby and every body is different, our cycles are different, most babies tend to come somewhere between two weeks before the due date, and two or more weeks after.

As you approach and pass your due date it’s possible that you will be tempted by a medical professional to do a membrane sweep or induction. Medical situations differ, however, if you have had a healthy pregnancy up until that point, ask yourself why would we need to intervene now? Why don’t we trust our bodies to complete the process when it’s had no issues up until that point? Is it necessarily the right thing to do for you?

I go into this topic on my course more, but please don’t fixate on that day too much, do some research into due dates and induction.

Look into the actual data behind claims that make bold statements such as “going over 42 weeks more than triples the likelyhood of losing your baby”, as the NHS claims “the risk of stillbirth increases from 1 in 3000 pregnancies at 37 weeks, 3 in 3000 at 42 weeks and 6 in 3000 over 42 weeks”. While the numbers in their claim increase as the pregnancies go further along, firstly we don’t have enough data to explain why any of those deaths happened so we can’t be certain that length of gestation was the cause, secondly and most importantly, the initial statement didn’t give any indication of whether we were dealing with huge numbers or small, so it was misleading and could unfairly scare rather than educate appropriately. So keep an eye out for statistics that are written in this way, and look at the numbers.