lizlovesalotofthings
New member
This is an update for this post where I was asking for advice on inducing labor. The short of it was that our doctors wanted to induce labor for our son at 37 weeks at 4 pounds 6 ounces. Their explanation was that he was at the 2 percentile in terms of weight and they don't know what's wrong. I believe that their claim about his low weight is dubious and a misapplication of a really old data set about birthweight. Feel free to skip the bulleted personal section below and skip to my thoughts in the empirical portion.
After having a lot of serious discussion and consulting with our parents and a doctor friend, we elected to have biweekly ultrasounds and continue monitoring the baby. We figured if ultrasound says he healthy, we'll just keep waiting.
Here were a few other anecdotal reasons why we decided to wait:
I noticed that in the ultrasound report it said "Alexander 2%", so there's some citation. After some digging, I could not find the original birth weight paper BUT I did find this lovely study outlining how the Alexander study is out of date. I was shocked to find a couple details from that study:
The Alexander dataset is over 30 years old. Granted the dataset was very big, but human body types have changed due to aesthetic preferences and dietary changes.
The original dataset was only 6% asian. They were extrapolating general population data where my ethnicity was but a small percentage. Are you a minority? Your representation is at best 16% and at worst less than 1%.
The last damning conclusion I'll take straight from the conclusion of the study:
"For example, in 1991, a birth weight of 2,000 g was at the 50th percentile between 31 and 32 weeks of gestation, whereas in 2011, a birth weight of 2,000 g now corresponds to the 50th percentile between 33 and 34 weeks of gestation."
i.e. babies weigh less than they did 30 years ago by up to 3 weeks of gestation
After all that, we decided to wait and induced much later at the 39th week. At that point, we were certain the baby was of an adequate weight and we recognized there were increased risk of stillborn birth, however small they were initially. Our baby ended up being 6 pounds 10 ounces and the picture perfect example of health. I have half a mind to have kept our placenta just to rub it in the doctor's face who initially dismissed our concerns about inducing so early but I'll settle for this reddit post. I hope you find this info helpful and if you're thinking of inducing early, you DEFINITELY don't have to listen to the doctors.
tl;dr we ignored the doctor's advice to induce because our baby was low weight, turns out their data kinda sucks and we were right
After having a lot of serious discussion and consulting with our parents and a doctor friend, we elected to have biweekly ultrasounds and continue monitoring the baby. We figured if ultrasound says he healthy, we'll just keep waiting.
Here were a few other anecdotal reasons why we decided to wait:
- The ultrasounds consistently said there was bloodflow to the placenta and umbilical cord
- Both of us were small babies at birth
- We did not focus heavily on diet because the doctors never stressed it. We figured with more calorie dense food, we could bring the baby's weight up in the crucial last few weeks.
I noticed that in the ultrasound report it said "Alexander 2%", so there's some citation. After some digging, I could not find the original birth weight paper BUT I did find this lovely study outlining how the Alexander study is out of date. I was shocked to find a couple details from that study:
The Alexander dataset is over 30 years old. Granted the dataset was very big, but human body types have changed due to aesthetic preferences and dietary changes.
The original dataset was only 6% asian. They were extrapolating general population data where my ethnicity was but a small percentage. Are you a minority? Your representation is at best 16% and at worst less than 1%.
The last damning conclusion I'll take straight from the conclusion of the study:
"For example, in 1991, a birth weight of 2,000 g was at the 50th percentile between 31 and 32 weeks of gestation, whereas in 2011, a birth weight of 2,000 g now corresponds to the 50th percentile between 33 and 34 weeks of gestation."
i.e. babies weigh less than they did 30 years ago by up to 3 weeks of gestation
After all that, we decided to wait and induced much later at the 39th week. At that point, we were certain the baby was of an adequate weight and we recognized there were increased risk of stillborn birth, however small they were initially. Our baby ended up being 6 pounds 10 ounces and the picture perfect example of health. I have half a mind to have kept our placenta just to rub it in the doctor's face who initially dismissed our concerns about inducing so early but I'll settle for this reddit post. I hope you find this info helpful and if you're thinking of inducing early, you DEFINITELY don't have to listen to the doctors.
tl;dr we ignored the doctor's advice to induce because our baby was low weight, turns out their data kinda sucks and we were right
For us, the doctors told us each ultrasound was effective for 72 hours. If you elect to wait, what's helpful is that each successive ultrasound where the baby is healthy is further proof everything is fine.