Your Due Date is a Farce!
Have you been inundated with questions around your due date yet? I consider due dates to be one of the most influential, and often negative, factors on the outcome of your birth. So, before you become wedded to a day, I’m here to take you through what I’ve seen time and time again.
Traditionally, a lead maternity carer allocates you a due date based on two factors. The first, a calculation called Naegele’s Rule. First created in the 1800s, Naegele’s Rule works on the assumption that women have a 28 day menstrual cycle and ovulate consistently on day 14. This is not calculated on the back of scientific fact, but on supposed evidence from the Bible that human gestation lasts 10 lunar months. What’s worse is that at the time, 10 lunar months was estimated to be 280 days. We now know that 10 lunar months (29.53 days) is approximately 295 days, which is two full weeks longer than our current due dates reflect.
As a result, we’ve been following a method for hundreds of years that has no basis in medical evidence. Leaving today’s society with the assumption that a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks - starting from the first day of the mothers’ last menstrual cycle. Now that we know this, is it really any surprise that only 5% of babies are born on their due date?
The other way due dates are determined is through ultrasound measurements. But what people don’t realise is that babies’ growth rates, particularly after 14 weeks, vary widely. Causing ultrasound predictions to therefore be wildly inaccurate, sometimes up to 21 days in either direction.
But how does any of this, simple calculations of a date, impact your birth outcomes? Because mentally we gear ourselves up for the arrival of our baby on a certain date. And when the baby doesn’t arrive “on time”, we start to stress (consciously or subconsciously) that there is something wrong. Then, well-meaning friends and family start checking in every 2-3 days to see how things are going. This unconsciously adds more pressure. Then our lead maternity carers start having conversations with us about what induction looks like. That only stresses us out more because we know inductions drastically increase our chances of having a medicalised birth. We don’t want that. More pressure.
Meanwhile, all of this pressure is causing tension in our body. The pressure triggers our stress hormones, adrenalin and cortisol, to skyrocket. These hormones are the enemies of what your body needs to induce labour.
In 1990 a study was done to calculate the average length of an uncomplicated human pregnancy. This study found that for first time mothers, the average pregnancy lasts 288 days (41 weeks and 1 day). For mothers who had previously given birth, the average pregnancy lasts 283 days (40 weeks and 3 days).
Yet in the last 20 years, there has been significant pressure put on women by care providers to induce once they pass the 40 week due date. As a result, we can no longer get accurate data about the average length of pregnancies. Women are not being given the option to let their bodies and the baby decide when the time is right to go into labour.
I encourage you to think seriously about calculating your own due date. You will save yourself a world of heartache.
You can use this link to help you calculate your due date. https://www.mamanatural.com/due-date-calculator/advanced-due-date/ It uses the Mittendorf-Williams Rule, which is based on scientific evidence. If you maternity carers are putting pressure on you to induce before you feel ready to do so, you can use this method to help you do what feels right for you.
Having a more accurate due date will also set you up for more realistic expectations in the latter stages of pregnancy, when you are increasingly uncomfortable and desperate to give birth, but also terrified to do so. Just remember that your body and your baby don’t operate according to calendars. Babies come when they are ready, and often without complication if they are left alone to let the process progress organically and within natural rhythms.