Tissy -- everybody counts!!
Elena2, Pidge, madgirl, MABS, judetheobscure -- how did labour (if any?) start.
AussieSim: age may be relevant, it wasn't in a set of 80 women I surveyed years ago so don't usually ask.
Pidge: your theory is as good as any, I suspect.
Motherinferior: what is your theory?
Preliminary results:
Sample size (so far, more welcome!): 82
% premature birth (before 36 weeks): 7.3%
% spont labour: 62.2%
% labour started after a sweep or only gel: 4.9%
% more induction than that: 20.7%
% no labour, straight to C-sections: 6.1%
% labours, however they started, that ended in C-sections: 13.4%
% labours started with inductions (more than a sweep (or gel?)) that ended in C-sections: 25%
Seems like a pretty low C-section rate! Notice Zipper & Aloha haven't replied, though. I really did want to hear from everybody.
pregnancy length (everybody):
....mean: 39 wks+5 days, median= 40wks+1day.
pregnancy length when labour started spontaneously:
....mean: 39 weeks+4.5 days, median= 40 wks+0 days.
% of woman induced leading to birth after 40wks+4days: 11%
I think that percentage of women seemingly induced for going "past dates" is high enough that had they been "left alone", the average pregnancy length for all spontaneous births would have gone up, but not dramatically. Suppose that seemingly overdue group (9 people, leaving out the homebirthers who went to 42+) all had spontaneous labours at 42wks+4 days on average -- this would raise the mean spontaneous pregnancy length to 40 weeks exactly.