Days ago we launched a survey to ask our readers in what week of gestation their babies were born. We already have the results.
In addition to curiosity, we wanted to have first-hand data to see if there is indeed a tendency for more premature births, that is, births that occur before the period considered “at term”, between week 37 and 42 of gestation .
The answers seem to indicate that it is. The majority of respondents, 44%, responded that their babies were born between weeks 37 and 39, while 37% were born between weeks 40 and 42.
On the other hand, a total of 15% of parents have responded that their babies were born before term, that is, before the 37th week of gestation.
Of these, 11% of babies were born prematurely, between week 33 and 36 of gestation, 3% of babies were born very premature, between weeks 28 and 32 of gestation and 1% before week 28 of pregnancy, considered large premature babies with a significant risk of life and of course great anguish for parents.
The period between weeks 33 and 36 is precisely in which more and more births are occurring in recent years, also considered "late premature", largely due to the increase in multiple pregnancies. Also for situations such as maternal stress or complications in pregnancy and in some cases because labor is induced early. However, specialists warn about the consequences of being born before, even if they are two weeks before term.
On the other hand, 4% of the respondents have become parents last week 42, considered the limit of pregnancy since being born post-term can also be risky. However, in certain cases and whenever it is very controlled, some gynecologists decide to wait during the week 43.
Finally, we thank you again for your participation in the surveys we publish on the blog, through which we obtain very interesting data.
