To be annoyed by '2 weeks premature'

[FlockOfTwats]

Fuck it. I know i'm being unreasonable. I know i'm being pedantic to the level of being a complete arsehole.

But it REALLY annoys me when people describe their baby as 2 weeks PREMATURE when they are born at 38 weeks.

37 - 42 weeks is full term.
YOUR BABY WAS NOT FUCKING PREMATURE.

Go ahead. Tell me i'm being unreasonable. I know i deserve it and need slapping down off my soapbox.

Very strange I was planned cs with both born at 39 weeks they were term or a week early not 1 week premature , some people just get muddled wouldn't let it bother you

My dtds were born at 36weeks - 4lb 6 and 5lb 12. Bigger dd had to be resuscitated twice and both were in special care for 8 days, the first 4 were very touch and go as to whether dtd1 would make it. Quite honestly I couldn't care less if someone wants to describe their 38weeker dc as prem and reading the poster who is annoyed someone would call 36 weeks prem can get off her high horse. What normal person plays prem baby top trumps anyway "my baby was more prem than yours so I get more attention?"

This thread is weird,

Ynbu it would anoy me.

Ds2 was born at 37 weeks so tech he wasnt a preemie but he was 4lb1, had no fat on him at all..liturally was just bone and skin and was in scub for a week and narrowly missed a major operation. He was classed as a preemie by the hospital and my parents but to me he was just early.

I posted up thread but just to add, I think some people are quite innocently and very genuinely so wrapped up in their own situation that it just doesn't occur to them that others have had far worse experiences. Everyone's experience is unique to them. When DS was about 8 months old I had him strapped to my front one day and we were waiting for a bus. Another mum with a similarly sized baby was waiting too. She started talking to me and the conversation went something like this:
Her: my baby was so tiny, so tiny, so tiny when she was born. So tiny. What was your boy's birthweight?
Me: he was tiny as well, he was born 16 weeks early and weighed 1lb 9oz.
Her: I didn't think you'd understand. Nobody ever does. My baby was so tiny, so tiny.
Me (becoming, I admit, slightly baffled): well how small was she?
Her: 6lbs 13oz.

Yes this conversation really did happen. I don't think English was the lady's first language so her meaning may have got lost a bit, and she may not have fully understood me, but clearly whatever her daughter's birth story was had traumatised her!

I had a placental rupture at 36.5 weeks. My ds was described as a 'miracle' baby because by chance I was already at the hospital when all this kicked off, and i had an ecs more or less straight away

We were warned however that he would almost certainly be brain damaged to some extent because of oxygen deprivation.

He lagged noticeably behind other babies in his development, and i used to comfort myself / give myself hope by thinking , 'Oh, but he's three and a half weeks premature ..he'll get there ....'

"Our results show the need for an increased awareness among health care providers that even though we consider babies born at 37 or 38 weeks almost term, they are still, to a large extent, physiologically immature,”

-Shaon Sengupta, MD, corresponding author and formerly a UB medical resident in the Department of Pediatrics and Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo.

www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2013/10/003.html

"We now know that important organs, such as the lungs and the brain, are not fully developed until 39 weeks,"

-Jason K. Baxter, M.D., an ob-gyn who specializes in high-risk pregnancies at Thomas Jefferson Hospital, Philadelphia

www.parents.com/pregnancy/giving-birth/full-term-baby-birth/

"Late preterm babies born at 34 to 38 weeks gestation do need more attention from moms in the first few weeks, but it's only a short time period that the pumping and breastfeeding phase will last."

Reviewed by Diane L. Spatz, PhD, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 2009

www.chop.edu/pages/breastfeeding-your-late-preterm-baby

.
"His lungs are still maturing and producing more and more surfactant, a substance that prevents the air sacs in the lungs from sticking to each other once he starts to breathe. Most other changes this week are small but important: He's continuing to add fat and fine-tune his brain and nervous system (so he can deal with all the stimulation that awaits him once he makes his entrance into the world)."

www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week-38.aspx

“For years, we thought babies born at 37 or 38 weeks were fine. Babies born even a couple of weeks early have a higher chance of medical problems."

-Scott Berns, MD, deputy medical director of the March of Dimes

www.webmd.com/baby/features/elective-early-delivery#1

I had a 37 weeker who was very tiny. All the way through I swear they dated me incorrectly as I knew the date of conception.
Anyway I just say she was 3 weeks early although she had to wear prem clothing

Now I feel bad saying tiny. She was just quite smaller than even they expected. 5lbs. I think she was 4-5 weeks early personally

Having just got my baby home after 11 and a half weeks in NICU, after he was born at 29 weeks, you are definately NOT BU. Seeing my tiny 2lb scrap fight for life was horrendous and even now he is still on oxygen.

I started reading this thinking YANBU but actually who gives a shit what other people say or think? No one has the monopoly on prematurity-it's not Top Trumps as someone has already said. There is always someone worse off and someone better off than you. My first child was 10 days early. My twins were born prematurely at 33+4 and spent 3 weeks in NICU with apnoea, lumbar punctures, intubation, CPAP etc. But I couldn't care less if someone refers to their 38 weeker as 2 weeks premature. What difference does it make to me?! And I realise this is a zombie thread and the OP may not even be on mumsnet any more!

38 weeks is considered full term, not premmie at all. YANBU at all.

Mine was born at 38 weeks and I consider him as full term but the HV was adjusting his age for the first year! Ridiculous!

My ds is 16 days old and born at 37 weeks but they are now querying dates because he currently is being tube fed, on iv antibiotics and looking very poorly! They said he was born before he was ready!

They will probably redefine it all again.

It's like another poster said about weaning being at much earlier stages 15 years ago.

You used to be able to give plain baby rice at what 3-4 months. The babies weaned this way have not all died or are all sickly adults because of it.

So i wonder if advice will change yet sgain re terms and weaning.