Do all pregnant women rely on the doctor for a due date?

[mears]

I am asking this question because of a mix-up in a woman's dates the other day. She had been ginev a date by the doctor that was actually 2 weeks early so she was disappointed not to get induced.
Do women not chart their periods anymore? I still circle the date of my period on the calendar even though I can't have any more babies
If you know for sure the date of your last period, do you know how to calculate your due date? You add 7 days and 9 months. The obstetric wheel calendar that doctors and midwives use may give a date a day either side of that sometimes.
If you were sure of your date would you accept a change of date up to a week by scan?
I wonder is women have lost the art of knowing how to calculate their own pregnancies y relying totally on the doctor/midwife.
What are your experiences?

Its not really dejags because that is the last time it was on a Saturday. Don't know where you got married but we had a glorious day - beautiful sunshine. It was cup final day (Arsenal - Newcastle) which is why I think we got the booking.

So was your DS actually born on the 16th?

Mears - do you think that because so many women have artificial periods through the use of hormonal contraception this has led to a decline in charting? I used to know that my period would start 4 days after I took the last pill in the packet.

Bozza - we got married in South Africa, also a glorious day and a few pissed off men in suits because they couldn't watch the footie

I went into labour at 5am on the 17th and DS was born in the early hours of the morning on the 18th...

Mine has changed several times - when i found out i was pregnant i new exacty when my LMP was as i had been making note of it whilst TTC. I worked my due date out as 2nd July.
When i had my booking in appt. my GP gave me a date of 9th July due to having irregular cycles.
i had a scan at what i thought was 10 weeks but sonographer dated me at more like 8 weeks - which therefore changed the date again.
Then at 12 week scan sonographer gave me EDD as 10th July.

Therefore i now go by what i was told at my 12 week scan - figured that i could well be wrong due to have irregular cycles and that sonographer was more likely to be right at 12 weeks going by measurements.

I did always know DLMP (less meticulous since DS was born), and was absolutely certain of date of conception. No discrepancies cropped up until after he was born when the paed INSISTED very forcefully that he was a long way past term. Had this been true, DS could not have been DP's as I had been away on a long work trip.....(and yes, he really is DP's, and is the spitting image, sort of!)

I'm not sure who to believe with mine and I've got a horrible feeling it might effect my attempting a water birth. Came off pill end of March with LMP end of March, but started charting straight away as always been irregular - no period at all but ovulation date was about 1 July. I have due date of 31 March but using a due date calculator from another thread it puts my due date about a week out.
I talked about this to the midwife who did the scanning at the hospital and they wouldn't note it but as you have to have labour kick in with no medical intervention between 38-42wks to have a water birth it could make a difference.
My GP and the midwifes at the hospital have not wanted to know about my temperature charting.

Sorry very long winded but with 6 wks till 10wk scan due date it is playing on my mind.

Dejags - just read your hopsital thread and realised you had a son in 2001 as I did and that we are both currently pregnant.

Bozza - we have both things by the book!

Now if you tell me that you and DH have been together 12 years and that you met in an airport I will be freaked out

No that is going too far I'm afraid dejags.

I've kept a log ever since I started, purely so that I would have some idea when not to wear white. At one pont I felt sufficiently 'in tune' with my body not to need it any more, but after being caught out several times I resumed the log. With both ny babies I even knew the date of conception (), so I wouldn't have accepted being given a date that differed by more than a few days.

oooh, reading this has made me remember something that I hd totally forgotten. When I first found out I was pg last time, I calculated my date as 5th January. After my first scan the measurements put the date at 30th December, and after some discussion about periods with GP we settled on 31st December. DS was duly born on 11th January.

The thing is, you only have to glance at me & DP to work out that any offspring we create will either be very very short, or a divorce.

I also know of a very large, very religious couple who conceived on their honeymoon, and were given a due date (based on the scan) some 7 1/2 months after their wedding, thus creating some wagging tongues in their community!

So, do the scan mesurements allow for the fact that we are not all identical?

My cycles have never been regular, and charting them just made me anxious. I did happen to know the date of my last menstrual period fairly accurately when I conceived, although I've since forgotten, but that was purely coincidental. Since it was not clear whether date of conception was a good match for expected cycle (didn't know whether contraception failed in the middle, or I caught while being stupid improbably early), I took the scan date (which argues for contraceptive failure). Given that my cycles range 3-8 weeks, it's not clear what good the date does me anyway; it's not like it has predictive value.

I sort of agree with you fisil. Neither DH or I are that big but my family history is of big babies and sure enough thats what I produced.

I know that there are only 3 possible dates in which i could've conceived - they are 12th October, 16th October or 19th October. Does this make it any clearer for me to work out me REAL due date?

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As my two are IVF pregnancies I was reasonably certain of the dates involved - but the GP still tried to use LMP (not appropriate as I had been "coasted" so egg collection and embryo transfer were fairly late in the cycle).

On the first pg, the person doing the scan amended the due date on my notes even though I had explained it was an IVF pg. She said that the scan was always more accurate and moved my due date from 22/3 to 7/3 (ds1 born 26/3!). Fortunately as I was "high-risk" I was seen by the consultant who simply moved the date back.

On the second pg the scan person noted a difference on dates but didn't try to chnage the due date at all - merely noted another large baby. She did say that this particular consultant never wanted the dates changed by scan.

Personnally I wished I could pretend that the due date was later (to avoid all the "aren't you late yet" discussions) but as I ballooned out really quickly both times, I couldn't really stretch the pg out any further!

I don't know what other women do...My cycle is irregular so I just remember the last date and start expecting AF around 28 days later. Plus or minus one week on that would still be normal for me. I dated this pregnancy based on the day i turned into mean b*tch from Hell. I assumed that was 7 days after ovulation... When the midwife asked me for LMP, I said "Just use this date, that will work right" and it did -- worked out PERFECTLY with the 2 dates I got from scans, but would have been 3-5 days wrong for my LMP and cycle length at the time.

Scan dated both of mine, and both were late and induced! Some babies just like to stay inside.

Since dh and I were TTC I came off the pill and then kept very careful note of when my periods started so we would know when to try, planned to try in August and got pregnant first time. By my date of LMP I worked out a due date of May 3rd, went to my GP who gave me the same date. I wasn't on a 28 day cycle though it was a 33 day cycle and I told my GP this, but just accepted that they work out the dates on a 28 day cycle and didn't worry to much about it since my dd was 10 days late anyway and I'm not expecting this baby to arrive on time.

Went along to the hospital for my 12 week scan and it all went to pieces. The Dr doing the scan said I was only 11 weeks along and moved my date forward by 10 days to May 13th going by the size of the baby. I told her that I had been on a 33 day cycle and she didn't say anything about it. When I got home I worked out my dates using a 33 day cycle and got a date of May 8th. It's not written in my notes anywhere that I had a 33 day cycle.

We've had lots of scans with this pregnancy and every time I have a scan I ask the Dr if the baby is the right size for dates and so far they've all said yes. My Gp on Monday measured my bump and told me I was bang on for dates so maybe I will deliver on the hospital due date, who knows. Although I'd put money on it being 3 days late and arriving on my my wedding anniversary of May 16th.

Linnet - thats my w.a. (and dejags see below) and also my due date.... so we might be in labour at the same time.

Although I had a late scan, more unreliable, it showed me as being 2 weeks further on than I said I was. The Consultant and Midwife insisted that the scan date was more accurate than my date. I argued my case and eventually got them to agree with me, dd2 was born 1 day after my date which was 2wks 1day after theirs!

I calcalated my own dates which my midwife agreed with. I can't remember the GP even calculating a date. With DD2 I had wanted a May baby and the due date was 1 May (my husband says I am a control freak...) The 20 week scan indicated a later due date by 10 days but I persuaded my midwife to go with my original date as I went two weeks overdue with DD 1 and was then induced - moving the date for DD2 later could have made for an even longer pregnancy . She arrived a few days early so I guess I was right.

With ds2, I calculated my dates by lmp and was pretty sure of when I conceived as we had been trying for some time and I was very in tune with my menstrual cycle. However the scan dates put me 11 days ahead of what I knew to be correct. But would anyone listen? No, it was hospital policy to alter edds to the scan date if there was a 7 day difference or more. I wanted a homebirth and there was no bl**dy way they were inducing me going by their dates. I even arranged a talk with my consultant about it, after which they grudgingly made a note in my records about my "concerns." I think they thought I was a nutcase.

In the event I had ds2 9 days overdue (by their reckoning), 2 days early by mine. It was the day before I was due to see the consultant to discuss induction. In a way I was sorry to have missed that showdown! But what really annoys me is that I was made to feel overdue when I wasn't. I was pretty desperate for baby to arrive by their timetable, when I shouldn't have been.

So, why don't the medical profession take any notice of a woman's knowledge of when she conceived? My 12 week scan was at nearer 14 weeks, and so was probably less accurate. (As I understand it, they are only accurate up to 12 weeks.) But nobody gave a damn. They only cared what the machine said! So, I was left with a feeling that I had a fight on my hands for the rest of my pregnancy, because straight away I realised the implication ie. they would want to induce me early.

Luckily, because I don't tend to go overdue (Ds1 was a day early), I got my homebirth. But as you can probably tell, I have a bit of an issue with this whole due date thing!

Had a Swiss Dr today at my hospital appt and tried again to get them to make a note in my notes about my reckoning of my dates. Yet again nothing.
Surely making a note of it could have them look into it a bit more if it becomes an 'induction' issue.

I knew EXACTLY when I concieved as I was testing for ovulation at the time, and we only had sex once during the fertile period. My periods are wildly erratic, and I certainly never have had a 28 day cycle.

I had endless arguments with my doctors about the due date. Firstly I knew when I had concieved. Secondly I had a scan at 6 weeks which confirmed exactly my reckoning of the dates. My doctor, however, blithly ignored both of these and gave me a date 2 weeks earlier, based on the wheel. I've never had a 28 day cycle, 42 - 60 is average for me.

When I asked about the scan dates, she just shrugged and said she went by her calculations.

Eventually the sluglet was born the day after I had calculated.

hmm well I'm not sure I trust my doctor on this one - at 38+5 weeks she's suddenly announced that my due date is about 5 days earlier than she's said all along so it fits in for her plans to c section me at the end of the week when its more convenient. we have had a parting of the ways.
moral - get that red pen out and work it out yourself!!