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.

I don't see how anyone who has spent any time in NICU/SCBU (as opposed to someone who had a baby at 37 weeks and took them home) could get competitive about this kind of thing.

My ds was born at 34+3 and was a good weight. Unfortunately he had very crappy lungs and was in NICU on a ventilator, then on oxygen for weeks and weeks, numerous set backs, finally came home after 2 months. He needed more help and was in for longer than my friend's 28 weeker. So gestation is kind of irrelevant - similarly you could have a term baby who was very poorly.

However, I made friends with a lady who had a 24-weeker when we were in SCBU and I know that I can't even begin to imagine how hard her journey was. I would have thought that most people going through SCBU will have seen people suffering terrible things and know that you can't compare your own experience to everyone else's.

The terms don't bother me much. I was told they say term at 37-38 weeks. It isn't a competition and when it did annoy me that mothers of 36 weekers said I know how you feel, I remember thinking no you don't but I really really don't want you you to either.
I had to remind myself that.
My two birth children were born at 26+2 and 24 weeks to the day.
They called them micro preemies which is any babies born before 28 weeks.

Miaow that makes me feel so sad. You don't have to earn a 'right' to feel the way that you do. As I said in my original post it is all relative and any early birth or birth with complications is a shocking and awful thing to go through. So sorry that you had a traumatic experience compounded by guilt that you should be grateful. Nobody should have made you feel that way

I had 2 sections both bang on 38wks. I wouldn't say they were even early.

Although I do have a 26 prem baby and I think that people who call a healthy 38wk baby premature are simply ignorant. They must be attention seeking drama queens to call their child premature.

Mine was three weeks early not prem.

YANBU. DD1 was a 33 weeker and I would and do describe her as premature. She spent 3 weeks in SCBU before we got her home. DD2 was a 38 weeker, and I'd never really even refer to her as early.

FWIW I was a 36, nearly 37 weeker in the 1970s and have certainly never been described as premature.

To me, premature means ill and needing help/treatment beyond a couple of days in SCBU. Coming home without DD1 was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

Couthy That's not true. I remember telling my dm when I was at primary school back in the 80s that a friend's sister had been born 2 weeks premature, and she responded with "2 weeks isn't premature. Full term is 37-42 weeks. It's just 2 weeks early. You were 2 weeks early".

Dm obviously agreed totally with the OP.

I think I agree too. To me "premature" comes with the tag of "potential problems/be careful" type of thing. Using it to mean early, seems a little attention seeking, a bit like people describing any headache as a migraine, or a cold as flu etc.

YANBU- I put someone on hide on facebook when she described a birth ten days earlier than the due date as "premature".

I doubt many people give birth exactly on their due date without an induction on caesarean! Due dates are estimates, and prematurity is something more significant than the human body not acting as if labour is something to happen to a strict schedule!

DD2 was born at 36+5 and therefore 'officially' premature by 2 days. She was 6lb 9 and had no problems but the hospital kept referring to her as premature when she was born and was tracked on the premature growth chart for months. To me she was just a few weeks early!

I completely agree with you...I almost think its something people feel the need to say to get a reaction.

DS1 was born at 36 weeks and was fine...spent a week on a transitional care ward and then got discharged and is now nearly 9 and absolutely fine.

DS2 was born at 32 weeks as I had severe PE. Spent nearly a month on NICU but most of that was trying to get him to feed and put on weight-he was 3lb when he was born. He was absolutely fine and needed no oxygen or anything.

To compare there were several full term babies on NICU who were incredibly poorly and several more premature babies who were born later than DS2 was who were also really poorly.

They stopped correcting his age at 1...even though he has several complex medical problems because they are not connected to his prematurity they didn't need to correct it anymore.

I admit I thought Id knew what it was like having an early baby after I had DS1...he was just under 5lb when he was born and had to be tube fed but I had him with me.

Fast forward a few years and I was looking a proper premature baby in an incubator...and then having to leave him every time to go back to the ward to see all the other mums with their babies.

Until you have been in that situation you have no idea how hard its going to be. I was one of the lucky ones...we knew really that he was going to be ok and he just needed to grow but I was surrounded every single day by other mums who had no idea if they were ever going to be able to take their baby home.

Well dD was born at 36 weeks and has severe disabilities. All cases are different.

So dont criticise others because your DS was fine.

I can find this hard as my daughter was too premature to even have a chance at survival (21 weeks)

YANBU. DS4 was born at 35+3 by EMCS weighing 7lb 2oz. He was in the neonatal unit for 4 weeks, 4 days of that in NICU. I say he is prem but after 37 weeks is just early I think. I found it a shock when he was taken to NICU because all the drs I'd seen before he was born said that he would probably be fine. I remember feeling a bit of a fraud at my postnatal checks (mums of babies in neonatal had theirs in the birth centre instead of at home with the community midwives) as the midwives there used to look at my notes and ask what I was doing there when I had a baby of that weight and gestation. DS4 also has SN and other health issues which is probably why he struggled so much when he was born.

I'm currently 18 weeks pregnant with DC5 and what annoys me most is that DS4's prematurity is just dismissed my HCP's. I don't even get "previous premature baby" written on my notes because he was born by C-section before my labour started (although my waters had broken) so he was only prem because he was evicted. I've got "3 previous overdue" babies on there though, even though DS3 was born at 40+2 and I wouldn't class that as overdue, even though technically I suppose he was.

My pet peeve although slightly off topic was a friend of dps family who to get attention spent her entire pregnancy claiming her baby was going to be early ! What was particuArly distasteful was this was at one point being said in front of a parent of a 29 weeker who has lifelong disabilities caused by prematurity . The baby who was going to be born early was born at 40 weeks after the mum demandd an I duction

I see what you mean, my three were between 7 and 15 days early,

My oldest is 15 and nobody ever referred to him as being anything other than early

I totally agree.

37-42 is term. No matter what intervention a baby born at term needs its still a baby born at term.

Nothing at all wrong with using the correct description.

My DD was born at 37+2, because I had a liver condition that threatened her life. My other kids were all born between 40 and 42 weeks. My DD wasn't 'premature' but she was born earlier than she should have been. She needed oxygen and struggled with breathing for her first 48 hours. She then rallied and has been fine. The annoying thing (a minor thing) about having a 37 weeker is that there is no adjustment made for those 3 weeks. My DD was clearly neurologically less mature than her sibs. She shivered and twitched and slept almost all the time, much more than her 40 weeker plus sibs. She was a 'late smiler' because she wasn't smiling at 5 weeks (ie 2 weeks if she had come at 40 weeks, or just 3 days old compared with her brother who was 2 weeks late). Her weight was monitored because she was plotted against 'full term' weights, if you took 3 weeks off the weight she was on 50th centile. It kind of annoyed me because had she been born 3 days earlier (and by my dates she was 36+5 at birth) she would have had those adjustments made by health visitors because she would have been 'pre term' and not 'term'. None of it matters now but it did cause some scrutiny in her ealiest months that was irritating and illogical. She didn't come at 37 weeks because she was ready. She came at 37 weeks because to leave her longer would have risked her life, and I think that HVs should be able to adjust weight charts etc for that sort of thing.

My ds was born at 38 it never occured to me or the mw that he was premature. Weighed 6 pounds, mw said "what a sensible weight!!"

Agree it can be annoying.

DS1 was moderately premature at 34+1.

DS2 was born at full term - almost 3 weeks early at 37+2, but still at term.

One thing that did annoy me though, was a friend saying to me shortly after DS1's birth, was that 34 weeks wasn't really premature and was practically full term.

Obviously babies can get a lot more premature than 34 weeks, so we had it a lot easier than some people - but at the time of this comment DS1 was in SCBU on CPAP because his lungs weren't developed enough for him to sustain his breathing unaided. DS1 spent about 3.5 weeks in SCBU altogether.

Yanbu.

I x posted and my post was directed to Jessie. But wasnt meant to be harsh, I posted in hurry.

I x posted and my post was directed to Jessie. But wasnt meant to be harsh, I posted in hurry.

Sorry to hear that jelly

OP - I'm loving 'fannies of steel' ! I may have to use that. Sorry nothing constructive to add to the discussion....

I have had 4 big babies - 2 were early at 37 and 38 weeks incidentally.

No 4 was 11 lb at 38 weeks, DH has now had the snip!!

Jen No they haven't. And i didn't say your son hasn't, but its certainly not the norm to correct a 37 weekers age.

lougle Being sick and being premature are two different things? I'm not sure what you mean by generalising.

lebear Well, at the time it bothered me most was when these idiots would say "Yeah i know how you feel, mine was two weeks prem" - While mine was in NICU. Now its forever linked with that and brings back that horrible time and feelings.

Couthy i know term babies can need NICU - SCBU care. I don't think that's been argued?