Early Babies

So just a quick question to get everyones opinion (i'll be talking to the MW next week about it as well)

What do you reckon if:
If you were having an uber crap pregnancy, and were unwell, in heaps of pain etc. Do you think you should be allowed to have your baby early so you can get on with everything instead of being sick etc all the time? (by early I mean 35 weeks +) Cuz I personally think if you're having such a crap time that you cant function normally - then you should be allowed to. What do you guys reckon?

yeah me too.. even though i had a very crap pregnancy...and it wasnt going well..and they thought i was going to have preterm labour..i was worried sick about him coming out early..unless he has IUGR or PE its better for him to stay even if its affecting the mother hugely..though i totally know how it feels to want it over early:(!

I agree with Kellz. Pregnancy can be very sucky for some people but in the big picture its such a short time. Even when people are really sick with gestational diabetes or pre-eclampsia etc the docs can still sometimes be reluctant to take the babies early, so I think you would find it really difficult to find someone who would.

Oh yeah me too, I didnt have a great pregnancy,..was made to stop work completely at 20 weeks by OB. I so know waht it feels like to want baby out.

MissAngel wrote: But dont you think theres a difference if it's affecting your basic functions eg: making it to the toilet, being able to wash yourself (getting in and out of the shower) etc

Yeah of course that isnt good. But those things arent affecting your ability to live. I feel the basic functions of the baby - such as being able to breathe and feed properly are far more important than the preg womens disconfort, so if that means suffering for a few more weeks so that baby is able to do those things for themselves when they are born, then I would totally chose that.

Hey there miss angel, I work in a neonatal unit with the wee premmies. Lots of people really think that by 35 weeks babies are all good. they seriously aren't.

The few that i have seen come through that have been induced early on request (ie, their last baby was stillborn at 36 weeks, so they were induced at 35) their babies have had a mass of problems, simply because you know, maybe those babies were planning on being 40 weekers, they aren't ready to come out, they don't breathe well they don't have any oomph in wanting to wake up and feed. The mums have a heap of problems too, a fair amount of mums that have to deal with having their babes in neonatal units often go on to have problems with Post-traumatic stress or Post-natal depression.   

It may seem that getting baby out is the easier way. Trust me, it soooo isn't.

Being under 36 weeks means you baby will have to go into a neonatal unit, it also means baby will probably much smaller (think 00000 or smaller, tiny scrawny) because it tends to be the last 4 weeks or so that baby has it's nice growth spurt and gains all the fat it needs to regulate it's temperature on the outside.

This means early babes are often in incubators because they just get cold. You have days of probably not being able to hold your baby, you have the risk of your baby having to be on Cpap, or respiratory support because their lungs aren't ready to be having to work on the outside world and they have problems with fluid in their lungs, which again means not being able to hold them.

You have a baby that will not feed from you, which means that you have to deal with expressing 3 hourly with a pump to keep up with the milk they need,and have to deal with the frustration of trying to get them to wake up and feed, while also trying to learn the art of breastfeeding at the same time, not in private but in a unit filled with at least a dozen other babies,complete with their families, nurses coming to check how baby is going constantly, medical staff, you have no privacy except usually a tiny wee screen that truthfully does not do much.

They need to be fed by tubes that are put in through their nose, they need IV's put in their arms (if they're lucky, otherwise it can be their feet, or even a vein in their heads) for fluids, they have a mass of blood tests constantly to check blood sugar levels, jaundice levels, red blood cell levels, because as premmies they are more prone to have blood sugar problems, temperature problems, and more prone to getting jaundice requiring phototherapy treatment, which means constant pricks to their poor wee heels which tend to end up looking like pin-cushions. Prem babies it has been found, tend to experience at least 10 painful experiences per day.

You really need to ask yourself if this is what you want for your baby. Fair enough, the end of pregnancy sucks, My last pregnancy i had SPD and could barely manage to shuffle as the pain was so bad, I had to deal with that day to day as well as a hernia as well as having a toddler and mostly i just wanted her the heck out.   But you need to think of baby too, your baby will come when it's ready, if it's not ready to come then there WILL be problems.

This is not a telling off or anything of the sort, I just wanted to give you the information that you probably don't have - about what it means to have a premature baby (that is.. anything under 37 weeks) - even just a few weeks early can make a world of difference to how healthy they are, or aren't.

Edited by mum2paris

Thanks Janine! Thats what I was trying to get across!

how many weeks are you?

I would say 37 weeks if you really want it out... that I could understand. 35 no way.

It does suck that you're having a rough time. I seriously think the end of pregnancy is designed to train us for the first months of baby'sl ife - where you still don't have any sleep, your pelvic floor muscles still don't work, and your body still hurts like heck.   I hope you feel better and find a solution to the problems you're having.