Crank Up The Pitocin: Post-Term Babies Are More Likely To Have Behavior Problems
Schedule that c-section and perhaps take your doctor up on that induction because post-term labor could compromise your baby’s behavior and emotional responses.
The Guardian reports that a study of over 5,000 Dutch babies determined that newborns delivered after the 42 week mark were twice as likely to have overall behavior problems. Researchers discovered that post-term babies were two and half times more likely to develop ADHD than those babies who arrived on time. Neena Modi, a professor of neonatal medicine, told the publication that these findings are pretty consistent with what doctors have discerned about post-term birth already:
Modi said its findings were “perfectly plausible [because] we know that birth after your due date is associated with a whole range of problems. If your baby stays in the womb for too long they are more likely to be a stillbirth, or weigh too little or be more likely to have a neurological disorder, because the longer a baby stays in the womb the more likely the placenta is to stop functioning normally.”
Meanwhile, groups of women who proudly refer to themselves as “10 month mamas” advocate going upwards of 42 weeks in the name of natural childbirth. While delivering babies too early clearly comes with an array of risks — so much so that certain hospitals are coming down on the practice — going too long in utero seems to have a host of problems too. Keeping with the mantra of most parenting issues, mothers simply have to find that medium ground.
(photo: Zagibalov Aleksandr/ Shutterstock)
