What is the best time of day to give birth?
Hint: It has nothing to do with Mum and Bub.
By Livia Gamble
It’s something you have no control over but experts say they discovered the safest time for women to give birth!
A paper published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found the safest time to give birth has nothing to do with Mum and Bub and everything to do with the doctor on duty.
“There are all sorts of studies about the timing of deliveries, but what nobody had looked at before is whether there is some kind of proxy for how fatigued the doctors are,” Dr James Scott, an associate professor of statistics at the University of Texas says in the paper, according to The Mirror.
Researchers looked at 24,506 unscheduled deliveries in the UK from the same maternity wards where doctors worked 12-hours shifts.
The results didn’t show any differences between night and day births or vaginal and C-section births.
What researchers did find was that when a doctor enters their ninth hour during a shift, there was an increased risk of maternal blood loss due to fatigue and missing small signals.
You’ll want to catch your medical team at the start of their shift!
“We find that there’s a peak eight to 10 hours after the beginning of a shift when, relative to baseline, the risk of maternal blood loss exceeding 1.5 litres increase by 30 per cent, and arterial pH, a marker for infant distress, is at increased risk of falling below 7.1,” Scott said.
Normal arterial pH is should be between 7.3 and 7.4.
Interestingly, the risk decreased in the final two hours of a shift, likely due to doctors handing over to the next on duty.
But at the end of the day, Baby will probably only come when they’re ready!
Your due date is an educated guess of when your baby may arrive. Term gestation is considered to be any time after 37 weeks and extends beyond the due date of 40 weeks. In an uncomplicated, low risk pregnancy it is acceptable practice to allow some time after your due date for labour to begin.
Remember: Medical intervention will sometimes be required in childbirth but should only occur when absolutely necessary. It is important women have all the information available to make an informed decision when the time comes.
This article first appeared on Practical Parenting and has been republished with permission.
