Why Babies Need Time...
If your pregnancy is healthy and you’re planning to schedule your baby’s birth, it’s best to stay pregnant for at least 39 weeks. Babies born too early may have more health problems at birth and later in life than babies born full term. Being pregnant 39 weeks gives your baby’s body all the time it needs to grow.
Here’s why your baby needs 39 weeks:
- Important organs like brain, lungs and liver get all the time they need to develop.
- Baby is less likely to have vision and hearing problems after birth.
- Baby has time to gain more weight in the womb. Babies born at a healthy weight have and easier time staying warm than babies born too small.
- Baby can suck and swallow and stay awake long enough to eat after he or she is born. Babies born early sometimes can’t do these things.
Why scheduling an early birth can be a problem:
- Experts are learning that scheduling an early birth for non-medical reasons can cause problems for mom and baby.
- Your due date may not be exactly right. Sometimes it’s hard to know just when you got pregnant. If you schedule to induce labor or have a cesarean birth, also called a c-section, and your date is off by a week or two, your baby may be born too early.
- Inducing labor may not work. If your labor is induced, the medicine your doctor gives you may not start your labor. When this happens you may need to have a c-section.
- A c-section can cause problems for your baby. Babies born by c-section may have more breathing and other medical problems than babies born by vaginal birth.
- C-sections can cause problems in future pregnancies. Once you have had a c-section, you may be more likely in future pregnancies to have another c-section. The more c-sections you have the more problems you and your baby may have, including problems with the placenta.
