feuervogel: (writing)
feuervogel ([personal profile] feuervogel) wrote2012-05-28 04:27 pm

Words and a question

+800, 57825/90000

Question: One of the characters is pregnant, in her third trimester, and she had an as-yet-unspecified complication about 3 weeks ago story-time, toward the end of her 7th month. (I can change the exact timing.) I think it was probably early labor, which the doctors were able to stop. She's just had a huge emotional shock, and I need her for plot reasons to be taken to the hospital tomorrow story-time. Would early labor fit that bill? I'd rather not have something wrong with the fetus itself, because it needs to be born relatively healthy. She could initially have thought they were just Braxton-Hicks contractions, then found out she was wrong.

Right now, I have a bit of mental handwavery and "I'll get back to that later" where this plot point is.
beth_leonard: (Default)

[personal profile] beth_leonard 2012-05-29 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
Also, people who are talking about lots of baby birth details always talk about weeks not months, dated from the start of last menstral period, so the day of conception counts as "two weeks pregnant" of a standard 40 week pregnancy. Delivery before 37 weeks is considered premature. At the present time in the US, delivery after 32 weeks means spending many infant weeks in the hospital, but likely a just fine eventual outcome. Delivery before 32 weeks poses significant risks for developmental or physical delays, and 24-26 depending on your hospital is the absolute minimum for being able to end up with a live human leaving the hospital. Many babies born before 26 weeks don't make it.

--Beth