to be fed up with hospitals changing due dates from scan results?

[Bogeyface]

Partly my own annoyance and partly someone elses.

I had mine changed by one day, just one day! But the hospital MW after my 12 scan insisted on changing it on the system and in my notes, why for the sake of one bloody day?! I have a school mum aquaintance that asked me if mine had been changed because hers has been changed 3 times in the same pregnancy, putting her at up to 2 weeks less pg than she knows she is at one point. It is now back to roughly (well within a week) to what it should be and she is really fed up with it.

I asked my lovely community MW about it and she said that no ones takes a mothers word for it anymore! She said that there have been several cases that she knows of anecdotally that have caused DNA tests after the baby has been born because the father wasnt around when the scan decided conception took place. She dealt with one personally where the father left the mother because there was no way on this earth he could have made her pg when the scan said he did as he was out of the country. She said that she often wonders how it worked out long term and her heart went out to the mother involved :(

I understand that technology has its uses but why the hell are these dates changed for every woman with no consideration of the fact that alot of us (not all, I know!) have a very good idea when we got pg? I know the exact day we had pg sex because we only did it once in 4 weeks thanks to illness and work! But if the scan decided it was actually a week before then my EDD would be changed regardless and that isnt right surely?

So AIBU to be pissed off at hospitals using scans to totally over ride pg mothers knowledge or am I missing some important fact?

PG insomnia has led to me lying awake pondering this and other things, so I may be back with some more AIBU soon! :o

you do know the baby doesn't read your notes, or care whether they change your edd fifty times?

i'm always vaguely amused that people fret so much about dates. unless you go hugely overdue and have to start arguing about induction, it's a waste of time. the baby will arrive when the baby arrives...

science isn't so scientific, anyway. it's crazy if people are splitting up on the basis of edd - you'd think it was worth waiting for the paternity test results.

Its the assumption that a computer program based on averages knows better than a mother that annoys me. I know better than most that babies come when they feel like it!

Why should what a hospital decides automatically over rule what a mother knows? Thats what annoys me.

You do realise that sometimes it will be a case of the woman fibbing about the father?

ah. well that goes back to the old medicalisation of childbirth and pg stuff, i'm afraid. loads on tinterweb if you can't sleep. recommend robbie davis-floyd.

If you have your baby very early, that kind of thing starts to matter a great deal. My dates were put forward a week, making me 25 rather than 24 weeks when it became clear baby wanted to make an appearance. When you are asked whether or not you want your baby recuscitated at birth, knowing your scan has put you a week ahead of where you think you are becomes really quite important. God forbid that apply to you, but for those moaning about the medicalisation of pregnancy, please remember that if things go drastically pear-shaped, you might have cause to eat your words.

My dear Friend had the same problem her scan put her conception a week later than it should have been, how did she know when she got pg?

Simple her husband was killed in a car crash, if she had concieved when the
system said she had it would have been with a ghost or she would have had to have had sex with someone a few days after her husband died.

Her hospital wanted to change her due date on the system and on her notes, it as only the threat of legal action on her part that stopped them doing it - no-one can imagine the distress and trauma she had to suffer because as a mother and a woman her word was automatically suspect

I agree with libelulle.

Ds was born by elcs, supposedly at 39 weeks. When he was born he showed lots of signs of being prem, had difficulty breathing, and was in nicu and scbu for 8 days. His consultant at the time thinks there must have been some sort of mix up with my dates.

9 months on and he has developmental delays, and various issues for which he is being seen by paeds.

I don't know what happened as regards my dates, I thought I knew when he was conceived, but obviously I and the scans were wrong! It couldn't have been by much, a couple of weeks? but it has made a huge difference to us.

sorry, cross posted with Islandlady, what an awful situation for your friend. I suppose in many situations it isn't black and white.

If yo know when you conceived why have a dating scan?

a few days either way also makes a difference when you are being 'encouraged' to be induced at just over 40 weeks.

My EDD jumped around like mad with DS2. It varied by 4 weeks.

I just picked a day in the middle and went with that. I did go a week over the date 'they' settled on, but I was bang on when I thought.

It was annoying that they wanted to induce me at 40 weeks (for the giant baby who never materialised either).

It isn't an exact science, it is all guess work, educated guess work, but guess work nonetheless.

I have 3 different due dates - 1 that I think is right, and 2 (4 days apart) from scans done at 11 and 13 weeks (repeat scan for Nuchal test). Their dates are a medical impossibility unless there was time travel involved.

Of course babies arrive in their own sweet time but if you're having tests done based on gestational age, or you need to make decisions about induction then knowing an accurate date of conception becomes important.

Your 1 day could have been entirely accurate if you ovulated a day later than you had sex or your DH's sperm were slow swimmers btw, bogey. Scans date from fertilisation rather than when you had sex.

So YANBU to be annoyed! And what happened your friend is terrible, islandlady :(

They messed about with my EDD too. It got jumped forward by 2 weeks, as DD was looking pretty long! We did point out that both DH and I are also very tall, but they changed it anyway. My work then claimed this meant I was no longer eligible for occupational mat leave, and it took several months of emails going back and forth, to get it sorted out. She turned up almost on the original due date, and 2 months later I got my maternity pay! Good job DH is also employed.

I believe that the incredibly rude and arrogant woman who did what should have been my 12 week scan relied so much on her machinery to date my pregnancy rather than trust me or the person who had done a previous scan that she missed the chance to realise something was wrong with my baby.

We moved house and counties and by the time my 12 week scan took place I was 15 weeks. I'd already had an early dating scan that put me at 8 weeks, exactly right with what I thought too.

Yet this woman took 3 weeks off my pregnancy and wouldn't listen to a word I said.

This was my first pregnancy and I didn't know it but even the scan pictures should have warned anyone who knows what a baby should look like at 15 weeks or even 12 weeks that something was wrong.

She might not have saved my sons life by paying attention to anything other than her own self-importance, but she might have prepared us for what was to come.

My cousin also had her due dates changed by almost a month and nobody was listening to her either. She had planned her baby very carefully and was 100% sure of her dates but was ignored so much that her baby was born dangerously late, and during the pregnancy they kept making references to her baby being too big and implying that something was wrong with her. By the time she was born the placenta was "deformed" in the words of the midwife, because her baby had been relying on it for too long.

A doctor then decided that my cousin had been right about her dates all along, that her baby was late and that nobody had listened because they hadn't believed she was so far along.

Scans are massively important, so much more than 'just' for dating a pregnancy or for finding out the sex of the baby, and they need to be accurate. And I think that means taking the word of the mother if she feels there is a discrepancy and doing further investigations rather than dismissing her as having no idea when she got pregnant in the first place.

With dd1 my dates were moved back by 2 weeks. No one took any notice of me. The new date would have meant my positive test was the day after conception and I was feeling movement at 11 weeks. Hmmm. She arrived on the new date but was obviously overdue - dodgy looking placenta, very dry skin etc. Ds was also 2 weeks late so wasn't that surprised I went overfly date but they wouldn't have induced for being over for 2 more weeks so good job she came on her own as mw said the placenta didn't look like it could have lasted 2 more weeks. With dd2 they changed my dates by one day - really can't see the point in that at all!

I agree with OP
They wanted to change both of my EDD. I have very short cycles meaning my pregnancies are likely to be shorter.
Hence lots of ooh and Aah and calling in a colleague to decide whether to change it by a week.
Again, I was 100% certain of conception!
I insisted they did not change my dates even though CRL was off the scale! Long babies.
Anyway with 2nd preg he was breech (only discovered at extra scan as I measured 2cm too much) (disgraceful midwifery but thats another story) and so began argument with consultant that if he waited till 39+5 for ELCS then I would bet his life baby came before then.
I was told not at all and don't be silly.
Of course baby came at 38+2 which was 2 days earlier than his sister put in a natural appearance. And became EMCS with 3 women in a queue also needing EMCS AND ONLY ONE DOCTOR!

If mum shows some uncertainty about her dates then scan dating is useful. But if I hadn't been so insistent they would have changed my dates and said consultant would have felt he was correct. Which he wasn't!

My EDD was changed by a day too. But funnily enough I went into labour the day after my due date, which was my original date!
Agree op very pointless!

I thought they only changed dates at scans on or before 12 weeks because after that babies grow at different rates.

With DS1 they moved me back by 11 days and he came a week early looking well cooked. No vernix to be seen.

With DS2 the scan measured out by 6 days, but they only change the date if you are more than a week out where I currently live so they kept my date the same. He came on his due date.

They always change my dates too. I always know when I've conceived. Consequently they took my daughter out at 37 week instead of 39 because I couldn't possibly know better than them

I know a woman who had IVF who's dates were adjusted. They really wont take your word for it even if you have scientific proof of when conception took place!

This is why I refused dating scans for my 2nd and 3rd pregnancies [they weren't available during my 1st pregnancy]. I knew when I conceived and that was good enough.
I would just like to remind people that you are not obliged to have any tests or scans ,unless you feel there are good medical reasons to have them.

My midwife said that they shouldn't change the due date from the scan if the difference is less than 1 week.

Problem is with women being soooo sure of conception dates is that ovulation isn't always in the middle of the cycle and sperm can hang around for a week so even knowing the day you had sex/when you think you must have ovulated isn't foolproof and can still put you a week out.

Dating scans aren't entirely about measurements, the apperance of the baby will be different at different stages too. As somebody else said just a few days can make the difference in terms of prematurity and also being overdue. The placenta has a shelf life so to speak.

think its a bit of a silly thing to get in a tissle about if you are only talking 2/3 days difference, not that many babies are born on the due date. I was told somewhere 38-42 weeks was ok and normal
Just because you had sex on a given day does not mean that was day of conception, sperm live a few days

YANBU

When pg with DC3 I was certain of my dates. They were changed as per scan. According to my consultant, the hospital policy here is to go by scan dates even in cases of assisted conception.

I wonder how many unnecessary inductions are performed (although I know that there's a flip side too where the woman really has got dates wrong).

Scans were not routine when my mother was pregnant with me - she knew when I was due but MW insisted she knew better and changed dates by three weeks and my mother was not allowed to go past due date because she'd had high blood pressure with first pregnancy.

She was induced and I was clearly early.

So do not think it a new phenomenon - but perhaps more widespread now.

I delivered dead on dates but out by between two days early and ten days late by scan dates. Ten days late one my MW checked who had done the scan as they had had a spate of wrong dates by one scanner.

They decided my sister's dates were wrong and changed them when she was almost 42 weeks and in need of inducing. They decided that she was actually only 41 weeks and could therefore wait another week to be induced.

Apparently it was nothing to do with the fact that the hospital was short staffed and it would have looked bad on their stats if she had been induced at 43 weeks because they didn't have the space to do it before then.

Poos dsis ended up with a whopping 10 lb plus baby who was clearly very overdue. Ouch.