So, it's not like we have much control over the situation.
Baby will come when it comes. Unless, of course, you are booked in for a planned c-section.
And while every delivery is affected by different factors, a new study has turned up some interesting information about the safest time for baby to arrive.
Previous studies had suggested that the day of the week is important, with weekends being viewed as a more 'dangerous' time for baby to appear. While others outlined day deliveries relatively 'safer' than nighttime deliveries.
But now a team at the University of Texas at Austin have come up with a brand new theory - and it is all about how long the doctor has been working.
Scientists there discovered that the risk of a mum suffering blood loss or a newborn suffering low oxygen levels increases when an obstetrician enters the ninth hour of a 12-hour shift.
Speaking to the Sun, Dr James Scott, an associate professor of statistics, said: “There are all sorts of studies about the timing of deliveries, but what nobody had looked at before is whether there is some kind of proxy for how fatigued the doctors are.
The idea is that fatigue leads to doctors missing small distress signals that they would have caught had they been that bit more alert.
We all know that there is not much we can do about this once we waddle up to the labour ward when things start to kick off but we did think this study would be of interest to our readers.
