It’s not nice (or good for the baby) to fool Mother Nature

I’ll admit: I’ve been out of the baby-making business a good while now.

Which means I’ve not kept up with all the new products and trends that fill department store aisles and the pages of Parenting magazine.

Just the flip-flopping alone on the correct way to lay a baby in a crib has my head spinning.

And here’s a trend that’s really caught me off guard: At some point, expectant parents — and their ob-gyns — became so arrogant they decided they knew more than Mother Nature.

For the past few years, an increasing number of moms and dads, too impatient or too inconvenienced, are scheduling the births of their babies before the actual due dates. At Naperville’s Edward Hospital, according to a spokesman, the number of elective deliveries before 39 weeks has gone up dramatically over the last 10 years.

My initial response to this news is pained: Who’d want to go under the knife unless you absolutely had to?

I count myself among the fortunate: I was able deliver all six kids without surgeries. In fact, I never really understood what a Caesarean was all about until I watched on video the birth of my first grandchild via an emergency C-section. Seasoned mom that I am, my mouth was agape as I witnessed all my daughter-in-law went through in order to bring this babe into the world.

Vaginal births are no walk in the park, either, but the fact some women would actually choose to go through a major operation both confounds and disturbs me.

And hearing some of the reasons only adds to my perplexed state of mind. They include:

Because hubby has an important out-of-town business trip.

Because they want the tax break (before Jan. 1).

Because the due date falls when their favorite obstetrician will be vacationing in sunny Acapulco.

And my all-time favorite: Because the little woman is tired of being pregnant.

The good news is Edward Hospital is joining forces with the March of Dimes in a pilot program that will ban elective deliveries before 39 weeks of pregnancy. Research, as it turns out, reveals it’s simply not in a baby’s best interest to arrive too early.

Like we needed a bunch of data to tell us that?

There can be, of course, solid reasons for these scheduled early deliveries; most notably, when the health of mom or child is in peril. Still compelling but more questionable: Dad being shipped off to Afghanistan (as opposed to a business conference in San Francisco).

Call me unpatriotic, but even If I’m going off to fight a war, I’d prefer to miss the birth of my child entirely than cheat my kid out of a chance for the very best start in life the little tyke could possibly have.

There are plenty of reasons those glass cribs of our hospitals’ neonatal units are filled. Babies have a habit of arriving when they darn well want to. In most cases, there’s no reason — except selfish ones — that mom or dad should help put them there.

Kudos to Edward Hospital and the March of Dimes for taking this stand. Hopefully, unnecessary early deliveries will go the way of drop-side cribs.

Source : http://beaconnews.suntimes.com/news/3159345-418/baby-deliveries-business-early-edward.html