Only 5ft - likely to give birth earlier?

[FiveFoot90]

Hi all,

I’m currently 27+4 weeks and feeling very big and uncomfortable already! I’m only 5ft and I’ve seen a few posts that suggest if you’re smaller that you might have baby earlier?? I’m due to see my midwife for my 28 week appt next week so not sure if that will give me any answers.

One of my concerns is my Maternity Allowance application. I was planning to stay working as long as possible, take a week annual leave before my due date and then start my mat leave the week I’m due. Now I’m wondering whether or not that’s sensible? Conscious that I need to apply for it soon and don’t want to put a late date and then end up having baby much earlier!

Thanks

OP you're right that there's a relationship between maternal height and length of gestation (the taller the mother, the later the eventual birth date) but it's a small effect, and it's at the population level rather than definitely affecting you as an individual.

One big study found that, after controlling for everything else, the change in birth date (from spontaneous labour) was about 1 day for every 3cm in the mother's height. So if a woman was 15 cm (~6 inches) shorter than average, she still might only expect baby to arrive 5 days earlier than an average-height woman. At the very early end of the full-term range (37-42 weeks), it does mean a very slightly higher chance of a preterm birth, but it's still unlikely.

So that was a long way of saying that if you're short in height, your baby is more likely to arrive sooner, but probably only by a handful of days. Noting to stress about!

Nope 5 foot 1 and was 5 days late, I've never actually heard this before as we tend to grow babies that our bodies can carry so even if your petite your baby will be suitable for you so no more likely to be early, maybe I'm wrong but there was never any mention of this to me when I was pregnant last time

Most obstetricians know about it but I think it's not widely discussed because it's one of many many things that can affect gestational length, and probabilities / relative risks etc aren't well understood by most people. For instance, you can't expect a probabilistic effect to apply as a rule in every individual pregnancy (i.e. not all short women give birth early), but you can expect it to alter your chances (i.e. 100 short women will have on average give birth sooner than 100 tall women).

OP - chances are you'll give birth within a few days of your due date, either before or after. Most women do! The effect of being short could be cancelled out by it being your first baby (I'm guessing? Maybe it's not), or by other factors. In other words, don't base your mat leave plans on your height!

will give birth*

Rogue have there for some reason!

My mum is short, I was 3 weeks early.
Took her 18 hours too, poor woman xD

How interesting -I’m over 6ft and now I’m really hoping that doesn’t mean I will go on too long -he is massive already!

I’m 5ft tall, my dc were 40+2, 39+6(although I didn’t labour so he would have been later) and 40+8 so being short didn’t make my babies come any earlier.
I understand you feeling big, I grew good sized babies( 2 were 2ft long at birth) and I was huge,

Never heard of this.

I'm 5ft exactly and both my babies went 2 weeks past due date. They were both almost 9lb too.

Never heard of this before, I work in maternity and have done for over 12 years. I'm 4ft 11 and had my DC at 40wks and 41+3 respectively. Any delivery over 37 weeks is considered term and not early or premature. HTH

I'm 5' and all 4 had to be evicted, I waited until 42+3 with #2 and no joy, even #4 was evicted at 42 weeks 🙄

I Don't think there is any correlation between the two at all.

Most obstetricians know about it but I think it's not widely discussed because it's one of many many things that can affect gestational length, and probabilities / relative risks etc aren't well understood by most people.

This. So many people can't seem to understand that just because it didn't happen for them as an individual (or their mother/sister/cousin's neighbour) that doesn't mean it's not true at a population level.

Yeah I'm not surprised it's not widely discussed. It would probably panic some people into thinking they'd be preterm/overdue etc.

Never heard of that before. Wouldn't mind it being true by a few days this time round though lol. Baby number 1 was born at 39+3 but baby number 2 was 42 weeks. X

I'm just five foot one of my babies was born at 37w and another at 40 plus 9 so quite a range.

5ft here, with babies born at 41+6 and 42+1.