An anti-choicer just told me he knows somebody who had a baby at 4 months of gestation

[2ndAmForComputers]

and the baby survived and is healthy.

I think it's bullshit, (at 5 months and a half the chances are already vanishingly small) but since it's a friend and I don't want to throw shit at the fan, I just said I think somebody somewhere counted time wrong.

Opinions?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. That sounds pretty extraordinary

I'm no doctor so I don't know if it's medically possible, however I suspect that that child would have had to spend a LOT of time in the hospital prior to the parents being able to take the child home. What were the circumstances that this child would have had to be born/removed that early? I have my doubts about this story............

[Brickbat]

2. The earliest a baby has been born and survived was at 21 weeks and 6 days. So maybe your friend

knows that baby and its family. Small world.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/27/baby-born-at-21-weeks-survives-how-young-is-too-young-to-save/

[2ndAmForComputers]

7. And even then, it's 5.1 months.

I'm smelling "The Fundamentalist's Reference Book of Anecdotal Rebuttals to Opinions We Don't Like."

[Bluerthanblue]

8. 21 weeks 6 days is over 5 mos.

into a pregnancy.

40 wks, 10 lunar mos. is a full-term pregnancy.

[tjwash]

3. Did her husband come back from overseas deployment 6 months before she got pregnant?

[crazylikafox]

34. Bingo

[Tom Ripley]

35. You know it!

[Hepburn]

4. Sounds like anti-choicer, forced birther bullshit.

I have a very hard time believing anything those assholes say -- and this seems particularly suspect.

JMHO

[TroglodyteScholar]

5. I would think it's BS too...

Here's a reference that says what the fetus has going for it at this point in the pregnancy: http://www.baby2see.com/development/week16.html

[Bluerthanblue]

6. sombody is lying

or misinformed.

Excuse the link, but the 'youngest' known fetus to survive was born last April, at 21 wks, which would be over five months into pregnancy.

A 'normal' pregnancy being 10 lunar months, or 40 weeks.

I'd tell your friend to do some checking before he goes around spreading untruths.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/04/21/youngest-surviving-premature-baby-leaves-hospital/

[Mariana]

15. I think someone is lying AND someone is misinformed.

Many of the garden-variety anti-choicers really believe that babies can live with just a few months gestation, and that thousands of women are walking into clinics in their last week of pregnancy and having elective abortions, and that no women ever die or are permanently harmed by pregnancy and/or delivery. They believe these ridiculous things because their leaders in the church, politics, and the media are telling them these things are true.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

9. It's possible. What's the gestation period for a cat?

[mrs_p]

25. 63 days on avg

[madamesilverspurs]

10. And I know a Republican

who thinks women are capable of making their own choices. Doesn't mean all Republicans are like that...

[cthulu2016]

11. People enjoy lying

[RC]

12. The lungs are non-functional at 4 months.

No way it could survive outside the mother.

[2ndAmForComputers]

13. HA! Get his reply:

"I was wrong, it was 21 weeks."

By the way, he started by saying it was an employee of his.

I don't think it takes Sherlock Holmes to deduce what happened here.

[Bluerthanblue]

17. so he's in Germany?

cause the earliest known surviving fetus in the world was born at 21 wks. 6 days in Germany. Her twin brother didn't survive.

[2ndAmForComputers]

30. Nowhere NEAR it!

That article never came up in the conversation!

Clearly, he adjusted his cleric-provided talking point when he saw somebody savvy was around, the little fucker.

Lyin fer Da Lord ain't a sin, folks!

[JohnnyRingo]

14. Why would she have delivery at 4 months?

It's not like the fetus said "OK, I'm done developing, let's get this done!".

Something went terribly wrong with the pregnancy to force a premature delivery at that time, and would have compounded the chances of survival. It's called a miscarriage.

I say it's a "friend of a friend" right wing myth. I imagine this person also knows someone who has a friend that was kidnapped at the mall by someone who slashed her achilles tendon from under a parked car.

[BlueToTheBone]

16. Lungs don't develop until the 7th month

so I can't believe a 5 month premie could a) live or b) be healthy.

[Yo_Mama]

27. They do, though

If they are not stillborn, with modern medicine about half of 23 week old babies make it. Some do quite well over time. 22 weeks, only 10% or so.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-06-02-prematurebabies-survival_N.htm

Joey!

He seems to be developing very normally.

My personal guess is that the ones like Joey were really a week or two older than their theoretical age, but I'm not a doctor. There is such a huge shelf between 21 and 23 week survival that I suspect that the counting discrepancy blurs the stats. A couple of weeks does make a difference in developmental stage.

The big advance in preemie survival seems to be steroid injections when the mother goes into labor.
http://www.babycenter.com/404_should-i-take-steroids-during-preterm-labor_5437.bc

[MineralMan]

19. Yah, it's bullshit. Ask that person for the name of the woman who had a

surviving 4 month term baby. My guess is that you won't get an answer. It's probably something he or she thought he or she heard or something read in an email. I've never seen any claim of a 16-week fetus surviving.

[ingac70]

20. They are lying....

or a liar told them that and they are very stupid.

[arbusto_baboso]

21. If true, it would have made the news broadcasts. Probably on a national level.

Complete and total bullshit.

[Marrah_G]

22. She is either, mistaken, misled, or a liar

[Yo_Mama]

23. There are 20-21 week survivals

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080318141043AAtfJJ5

4 months = 4 X 4.33 = 17.3 weeks, 5 months = 21.5 weeks.

The way doctors count the weeks is different than the way we women usually count them, at conception. Doctors count from the date of your last period. That's one source of error - a woman might count herself at 18 weeks pregnant when a doctor has it at 20.

But doctors miss sometimes because it is possible to get pregnant late in the prior cycle and have your period, so my guess is that's how this happened. The official number was too low by a couple of weeks. Some women do menstruate one cycle after they conceive. If the fertilized egg is still traveling through the fallopian tubes down to the uterus, you might have a last cycle while pregnant.
http://www.womens-health.co.uk/menstruation-during-pregnancy.html

Some women do experience a regular menstrual cycle, even though they are pregnant. This can happen as a result of conceiving close to the time of the next menstrual period and can cause major confusion in terms of due dates. The gestational age of the baby and its due date are usually calculated based on the date of the last menstrual period.

So then the doctor might have the age at 20 weeks, the woman would think the age was 18 weeks, and the real age would be more like 23 weeks (doctor method minus 1), and they do save about half of those now.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-06-02-prematurebabies-survival_N.htm

Among babies born alive at 22 weeks, fewer than 10% survived; at 23 weeks, 53% survived; at 24 weeks, 67% survived; at 25 weeks, 82% survived; at 26 weeks, 85% survived, the study shows.

That's from Sweden, but US survival rates would be pretty similar.

[lapislzi]

24. Yes. And no.

My friend's twins were born at 22 weeks gestation. The neonatologists gave them close to a zero chance of survival.

My friend is also a multimillionaire hedge fund manager. He and his wife threw literally millions of dollars at the hospital(s) and doctors, flying people in from all over, trying experimental therapies and doing every possible thing a human could do to save these tiny lives. I cannot begin to imagine the what the bills looked like, or the anguish of the parents.

The twins remained in the hospital for several months, probably close to a year. Now they are four and appear to be relatively free of developmental disorders.

I am not a hedge fund manager. Had I given birth at 22 weeks, my baby would be made comfortable and probably live a few hours or days.

All that being said, I do commend my friend for becoming a major donor/force in the March of Dimes.

But it gives me pause. It gives me pause.

[pitohui]

26. trying to debate someone of subnormal intelligence is a waste of time

my opinion is why do you waste your time in such a discussion? even if you think the anti-choicer is of normal intelligence, clearly he is a sexist and a misogynist and his hate/fear of women is having a strong negative impact on his ability to perform minor functions such as TELLING THE TRUTH, KNOWING HOW TO COUNT, and so on -- hatred makes people stupid, and stupid people do and say stupid things, you don't have to invest your limited time on this earth researching every piece of their stupid made-up bullshit

it's even worse if the anti-choice woman-hater is a woman, nothing is more devastating to one's intelligent ability to function than a deep seated self hate

you know that saying about teaching the pigs to whistle? that's what i think

intelligent adults have nothing to gain by climbing in the mud and mud wrestling with idiots, and if you keep climbing in the mud and wresting w. idiots...it just makes you look as bad as the idiot

let it be fair fight, let idiots fight idiots

when an idiot and a hater tells you something that sounds stupid ass, nod and trust your gut...accept that YES it's stupid ass instead of constantly doubting and self-questioning

[benld74]

28. What was the medical bill in order to do this?

[IggleDoer]

29. Repubs in AZ are trying to push that pregnancy dates begin with last menstrual period ...

... pushing the gestational dates by two weeks. According to Repubican math, a fetus at 19 weeks pregnancy is "actually" at 21 weeks, thus pushing the limits.

[Cleita]

31. Unless science has found a way to put the baby in a jar until it matures to a

point that it can function outside a womb or womblike environment, I'd say he's pulling that tall tale out of his ass or someone did and he believed that someone. Press him for more details. You don't have to be rude, just keep feeding him some facts while you press him for details.

[GeorgeGist]

32. Sometimes it's better to Google ...

before you Think bullshit.

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20062960,00.html

[2ndAmForComputers]

36. It's bullshit. That's 5.1 months, it's a single case and it happened in Germany.

Bullshit.

[LeftishBrit]

33. They are wrong. No baby has ever survived being born at 4 months (18 weeks)

There are a very few babies said to have survived being born at 22 weeks, but it's EXTREMELY rare. The earliest that gives a significant chance of survival is 24 weeks, and even then it's a very long haul.