What Time of Day is Best To Give Birth

As parents-to-be, we often wonder what time of day would be best to welcome our bundle of joy. Let’s turn to the experts to find out: what time of day is best to give birth?

According to the statistics from birth certificates in the United States from 2013, the most recent data we have, most infants are born around breakfast than at any other time of the day. The birth rate in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia were analyzed for the study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

According to their findings, the hours of the morning and the middle of the day, notably between 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. on weekdays, saw the highest number of births as a percentage of the total.

When Labor and Delivery Are At Their Most Effective

To what, then, can we credit this morning’s increase in the number of births? During the day, specifically around 8 o’clock in the morning, there was a substantially higher concentration of women having cesarean sections without having first gone through labor. According to Jennifer Wu, MD, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, “This makes logical, as C-sections are normally done during the daytime hours and wouldn’t be scheduled overnight or into the early hours of the morning,”

However, the data also indicated that natural vaginal births, as opposed to those that were induced or performed via cesarean section, were more likely to take place in the early morning. According to the findings, births were more likely to take place between the hours of 11 p.m. and 5:59 a.m. on either Saturdays or Sundays.

A study that was conducted and the findings of which were published in 2005 by Stanford University indicated that babies who were delivered during the night had a greater death risk in the first four weeks of life than kids who were born during the day. The authors of the study hypothesized that this was because of insufficient staffing coverage or a reduction in the number of available services late at night.

However, this does not explain the occurrence in all of the locations where it has been observed. According to Wu, “In our hospital, there is very much the same number of doctors available throughout the day and into the evening.” In this case, the staffing situation and the degree of care provided would be the same regardless of what time of day the baby is born.

The Most Ideal Time of Year to Give Birth to a Child

According to Wu, the month of September is the one that experiences the highest number of births. She relates this to the fact that many conceptions take place between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. “We’ll also observe an increase in births approximately nine months after a particularly terrible winter, a large snowfall, or a blackout in the New York City area,” adds Wu. “We’ll also see this surge of births about nine months following the event.”

When it comes to deliveries being made over the holidays, there is no need to be concerned about a shortage of workers. “People think that giving birth on holiday might be a bad time, but the hospital is usually a little bit quieter because most doctors wouldn’t schedule a C-section on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s Day,” says Wu. “These are the three days when most doctors would avoid scheduling a C-section.”

Also, if you’re planning on conceiving at a specific moment in order to have a baby at a particular time, you should realize that it’s tough to predict the exact day of birth. According to Wu, “It’s difficult to plan your baby’s arrival because they can come anywhere from three weeks early to around a week after your due date.”

Although Wu does not find the findings of the CDC to be particularly shocking, she asserts that there is no rational medical explanation for why kids are delivered at specific times of the year. If your physician has told you that you are ready to give birth at any time, including in the middle of the night, you should not hesitate to push.

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