Why are so many babies born around 8:00 AM? (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are so many babies born around 8:00 AM? (2017)

#131

Post by devilbunny » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 1:56 PM UTC

buscoquadnary wrote: post #6

utopcell wrote: post #3

Tl;Dr: ~30% of births are C-section, and hospitals prefer early morning operations.

Just had baby Dr wanted to do it at 7:00 and the hospital required us to be there at 5:00am. Dr showed up half an hour late. The reason he scheduled for then was so he could still do office hours. His office closes at noon. Don't like the guy.

You have to register with the hospital. You have to change into a hospital gown. You have to get an IV and labs (which take an hour to come back). You have to do a nursing intake interview (which is surprisingly long).

I'm an anesthesiologist. My wife needed surgery. And the surgeon is a friend of mine from childhood and needed to leave that afternoon. We had a free OR. Even then, it took 2.5 hrs to get her registered, up to the surgical floor, and to the OR.

So, maybe that doctor is a jerk, but realistically, it takes a while even if you have the inside track on everything.

Re: Why are so many babies born around 8:00 AM? (2017)

#132

Post by jerf » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 2:04 PM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #67

jerf wrote: post #34

This is a good example of how in the real world, everything is correlated with everything. Understanding this principle, I would expect uneven birth times and birth dates. I may not be able to guess what will cause it to be uneven (though in this particular case I would have gotten pretty close), or by how much it will deviate from uniformly random (I would have gotten this wrong to the low side), but it's sure to be…

There’s a difference between lots of different factors having an impact and one giant one forcing everything to be at the same time. With the former you’d expect a normal distribution (not uniform) due to the central limit theorem - the sum of a large number of variables with some error distribution will result in a sum with a normal distribution. This isn’t math 101 but an incontrovertible fundamental finding of Cal…

"With the former you’d expect a normal distribution (not uniform) due to the central limit theorem"

You'd expect it, but in the real world you'd be extremely frequently wrong. Correlations in the real world very frequently end up defeating the central limit theorem in practice.

The central limit theorem, being a mathematical thing, is correct; it can't be "wrong". However, while adding together a lot of distributions will absolutely trend towards a normal distribution, it does not make very many promises about how "quickly" that will happen. In practice the real world is filled with the sort of pathologies that result in it being "very slow". Scare quoting some words here because they are rather vague in math terms and I feel bad about that, but putting real mathematical meat behind them would be beyond the scope of an HN post. Many, many, many things are not normal that "should" be, and you can make some grave mistakes in the real world if you overestimate the normality of real world distribution. I recommend Taleb's works here, if you need more details.

Re: Why are so many babies born around 8:00 AM? (2017)

#133

Post by jerf » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #105

jerf wrote: post #34

This is a good example of how in the real world, everything is correlated with everything. Understanding this principle, I would expect uneven birth times and birth dates. I may not be able to guess what will cause it to be uneven (though in this particular case I would have gotten pretty close), or by how much it will deviate from uniformly random (I would have gotten this wrong to the low side), but it's sure to be…

Mu guess was going to be the body is less likely to want to go into labour at night so “holds off” until the morning to some extent but not always!

Yup, that's what I meant by "diurnal hormones". Personally I'd still guess there's an effect there, it's just so swamped by the c-section surgery nothing else is visible.

Re: Why are so many babies born around 8:00 AM? (2017)

#134

Post by pc86 » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 3:01 PM UTC

chrisherring wrote: post #122

russdill wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 100% relevant. If you have a pregnancy for which there is a high chance of an emergency c-section, an alternative is a scheduled c-section.

No it’s not. That’s a different comparison.

How is it a different comparison? If you knew whether or not you'd need an emergency c-section, you'd never have any emergency c-sections. There are four types of labor:

1. Unassisted (with and without medication)

2. Assisted (vacuums, etc.)

3. Scheduled c-section

4. Emergency c-section

The problem with #4 is that it often happens after attempting 1 and/or 2 unsuccessfully. The baby is in a much worse position, sometimes medically and often physically within the mother's body. You can't compare 1 and 4 without also comparing 1 and 3, 3 and 4, etc. Everything is interrelated.

Re: Why are so many babies born around 8:00 AM? (2017)

#135

Post by russdill » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 4:52 PM UTC

public_defender wrote: post #127

russdill wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge difference between arguing that many scheduled c-sections are not for medical reasons vs that there are not medical reasons for a scheduled c-section.

Well, good thing nobody is taking the second position. My point is that natural labor is not allowed by the medical system to progress in many cases where there is no medical reason to intervene. I said wait until medical intervention becomes necessary, not force active labor on everyone. As others have pointed out, we can detect the need for medical intervention at an early stage sometimes. That's great, people shou…

Sorry, I was misreading "wait until medical intervention becomes necessary" as "Do not perform scheduled c-sections, only perform unplanned and emergency c-sections".

Anyway, I really don't think the issue with the majority of scheduled c-sections is surgery being forced on patients. It's patients and their doctors discussing the risks of an attempted natural birth vs a scheduled c-section and opting for a scheduled c-section. In some many cases the patients involved have no increased risk for a natural birth but may still opt for a c-section. And yes, on the flip side, no one should be forced into an attempted natural birth.

Re: Why are so many babies born around 8:00 AM? (2017)

#136

Post by euroderf » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 10:19 PM UTC

thakoppno wrote: post #103

lostNFound wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s correct, and scheduled C-Sections are also the reason Christmas is the rarest birthday.

Tangent but it occurred to me the other day that it takes 9 years before one experiences a birthday on every day of the week. Over the course of a lifetime maybe the dispersal evens out but it seems like some of us are just destined to have more birthdays on the weekend.

Related: why many calendar "reforms" never catch on: who wants to have their birthday fall on a Tuesday every year of their life ?

Re: Why are so many babies born around 8:00 AM? (2017)

#137

Post by Thiez » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 9:31 AM UTC

im-a-baby wrote: post #120

public_defender wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The practice of routinely scheduling a c-section is basically a confession that birth medicine doesn't serve the patient. Any reasonable medical system would allow natural birth to progress until medical intervention became necessary.

Why is scheduling c-sections bad? I think it just reflects the reality of our society. First of all, people don’t seem to like giving birth. A vast majority of those who give vaginal birth get epidurals. Is that really preferable? Or is it preferable to writhe in unspeakable pain? Also, women are busy. Scheduling the procedure helps birth fit neatly into a chaotic life. Is that wrong?

Getting epidurals (or pain medication in general) is a cultural thing. Just compare with the Netherlands, where home births are fairly common and pain medication is relatively uncommon.

Re: Why are so many babies born around 8:00 AM? (2017)

#138

Post by chrisherring » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 10:38 AM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #134

chrisherring wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it’s not. That’s a different comparison.

How is it a different comparison? If you knew whether or not you'd need an emergency c-section, you'd never have any emergency c-sections. There are four types of labor: 1. Unassisted (with and without medication) 2. Assisted (vacuums, etc.) 3. Scheduled c-section 4. Emergency c-section The problem with #4 is that it often happens after attempting 1 and/or 2 unsuccessfully. The baby is in a much worse position, somet…

Comparing outcomes of emergency c-sections to scheduled c-sections is always going to come out in favour of scheduled c-sections. On one side something is going wrong 100% of the time and the other something is not always going wrong. Not sure how to make this anymore obvious. This is a pointless comparison.

Comparing outcomes of natural births as a whole vs scheduled c-sections is far more useful comparison.