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.

Yanbu. For all the reasons AWhistlingWoman said. My dd was extremely premature too.

Whilst we are on the subject, it annoys me when people ask about dds health issues and I tell them about her food phobia. 99% of the time they will say "oh my Brian was a fussy eater, he's 6ft3 now and eats everything!"

She is not a 'fussy eater'. Given the chance she would starve herself to death. She has been tube fed on and off her entire life. She survives on calorie shakes. Do not tell me that you know what it's like because your dd didn't eat veg until she was 6.

Is it possible that when people hear about a family member/friend having a premature baby they really do not know what to say and how to express their support so sometimes come up with less than helpful comments? All this "I know a prem baby who is now 6 foot 6" or "Mine was 2 weeks prem and was fine" are perhaps awkward attempts to be supportive.

I think it's the dismissive tone of it, as if everything our children have gone through was a breeze because they have an anecdote about a 6ft Kevin.

My ds was born at 26 weeks and am now 36w pregnant with dc3. I have also had the 'I know how you feel, my dc was a 36 weeker' thing from people and it pissed me off. But now I'm pregnant again and have made it this far, I'm surprised by how amazingly anxious I am not to have an early term birth. Docs wanted to give me a c-section at 37w and I refused. They were very cavalier about poss of lung issues, but as someone said above, wet lung can be serious, even in an early termer. My previous self would have told me to get a grip! But after what DS went through I don't want to go near NICU ever again, even for a few hours - I can't go near the place without howling. Fingers crossed I'll get my wish!

Yes I hear about bloody 6ft Kevin all the time!!! Ds at nearly 4 is on the 0.4th centile and very unlikely to grow to normal height, people have no idea of the trauma he went through and the long-term effects on his body of being born over 3 months early. Mostly, I suspect, 6 foot Kevin was not a micro-preemie, and if he was he is very very unusual.

In my head two weeks prem is 35 weeks
I don't get het up about it though. My dd was 27+ weeks and I know what it's like to have a prem baby. If someone found their 36 weekers experiences hard then that's sad for them too. My dd is mainly fine, there were babies born at the same time in NICU who were term who have had much more long term problems than she has had.

It is not a competition.

When I was in nicu with ds (39 weeks 8lb 9oz - cpap, tube fed and very ill) my friend whose baby had been born at 28 weeks, was incredible and lovely.

It did feel strange to have huge biy squeezed into an incubator. But his lungs were premature, he had a hole in his heart, jaundice and no suck reflex. Now we know he has lifelong disabilities, but we didn't know that then.

Dd is 4 and on the 9th centile for weight.

Annoyingly she is tall, but that makes it worse as she's soo thin.

It's easy for mums of premature babies of feel as if anyone with a child born at a later gestation than theirs must have had an easier journey though nicu and thus feel as if they have no right to be quite as stressed/terrified as they were.

As a mum of 2 prems myself, I used to be to be guilty of those feelings, of thinking 'what do they know about prematurity'

I'll tell you what stopped it and that was watching several of my friends have much later prems than mine be left with serious life limiting disabilities while my son who we were told wasn't going to live goes from strength to strength, with no lasting issues at all.

Having a baby is frightening at the best of times, when something goes wrong it is terrifying whatever gestation the happens at.

YANBU at all, 38 weeks is properly term.

I think there's a grey area between 37-38 weeks. While inducing/ planning a ELLSCS for a baby not ready to come can cause breathing issues, a baby that comes spontaneously at 38 weeks without any other complications such as an infection, PROM etc. is just coming when they're ready jd is normal for some pregnancies.

The Cub was 5 weeks early and I insisted he was described as technically prem because he had no issues. HCP's would insist on calling him prem!

I know people who have babies 10 weeks early etc, or with major health probs at 5 weeks and it just seemed disrespectful to everything they had been through.

Of course babies can have shed loads of issues born 5 weeks early and we were lucky, people who have the clinical definition of prem babies should choose their own term.

UseToAnnoyTheFuckOutOfMeNotSoMuchNowTiggaxx

I understand that too Methe. My friend lost her baby during labour at full time. Another friend's son was starved of oxygen - also full term.

I'm not pretending prems have the monopoly on health issues but people that breezily compare the one night thier baby spent on SCBU to when I lived in a chair by an incubator for months on end feels like a bit of A slap in the face.

Mine are 18 and up. It wasn't seen as premature in those days at all. My oldest was three weeks early. Not at any point classed as premature.

In some ways I found term babies in nicu the most distressing. A tiny prem baby 'belongs' in an incubator, its the obvious place for them. A term baby belongs at home with its parents. And often as has been pointed out it is term babies in nicu who have been born with major issues that are lijerly to be lifelong. But to be fair, I don't think op was saying that NICU with a very poorly baby, whatever the gestation, is a walk in the park, she was referring to when people whose babies were just a bit early and not very ill at all try to tell you that as a parent of a baby on the borderline of viability, they know what you went through. They don't!

Hmm, YABabitU possibly. All of mine were induced at 36/37 weeks due to my health problems and my consultant was very insistent that these were 'premature' births and that their may be problems especilly with lungs not being ready (despite my having the big steroid injections before induction).

One of my DCs was very ill and not at all 'ready' to be born and spent 10 days in PICU ( we were discharged as his problems weren't immediately apparent, then weren't allowed to return to NICU/SCBU as possibility of cross infection, resulting in a 100 mile transfer by blue light to nearest PICU bed, we weren't allowed to travel with him but arrived later.)

So you can have quite a 'preemie' experience with a 37 week baby. Plus any baby of any gestation can be poorly and parents can experience the whole 'will he survive' scenario.

Also comments like 'I had one and he's 6 foot 3 now!' are people trying to be nice and positive and boost you up so YADBU to criticise that.

X posted with zoe who expressed it all much better than I did!

I do say my dd was early at 38 weeks. I say she was induced early because it seems simplest way of expressing it!

And totally agree with miaow...I didn't seek help for awful PND for a year because 'he's fine now isn't he? You must be so happy he's pulled through'.

Ds1 three weeks early.
Ds2 two weeks early.
Dts Premature. emergency section 33.1 weeks, two weeks in scbu.

Oh and I never answered the question!

YANBU as, according to the World Health Organisation's definition, a baby born at 37 weeks or over is not premature.

As Methe rightly points out, sadly this does not preclude babies born at 37 weeks or over being extremely ill or dying. But I don't believe that is what is up for discussion - it is whether they should be described as 'x weeks premature' and, personally, I don't think that they should.

I know IABU for letting it annoy me. I think it because it does seem dismissive as Southern says although it often comes from a well intentioned place. As do all the 6ft Kevins! But it is a bit much to be told by someone who has had a 37 weeker that they know how you feel when you have watched one of your children die and another struggle and struggle to breath for weeks and even months. But they simply don't have any concept of those experiences for which I can only be grateful really!

Like Tigga it used to really irritate me, not so much anymore. And I think that anybody who has spent a lot of time in a NICU appreciates that gestation is not the only indication of state of health. As hazey says, it is not a competition.

Love the username btw hazey

Just one point - my 7lb7 DS1 had to go to SCBU at term because despite his weight, he was actually malnourished due to my HG! (I should technically have HUGE babies, my DD born at 34+5 was 6lb12!!)

So it's NOT always an 'early' 'tiny' baby that might need support from SCBU, and it does always feel like my experiences with DS1 were downplayed - especially when he got viral meningitis at 5 weeks old and was rushed into NICU then. (Thankfully no lasting effects, until he was 11yo, when he started having seizures, but otherwise totally healthy).

Just because a baby has gone to 'term', and is a 'reasonable, average size', it DOESN'T mean that they can't still have health issues and need to go to SCBU.

I actually had a far more difficult pregnancy, birth and newborn period with my DS1 who was born on his due date at 7lb7 than I did with my 34+5 preemie DD who weighed 6lb12.

(I was induced due to pre eclampsia with DD, and due to horrific HG with DS1. I spent 7 weeks in hospital during my pregnancy with DD, and NINETEEN during my pregnancy with DS1...)