Viability

Mandy Ellsworth

On other boards, women talk about viability day.  I think it is at 24 weeks?  Is this the same day for twins?  I know the day is rather ambiguous because 24 weeks would be a very premature baby.  Just curious if your Dr ever told you when the babies were viable based on ultrasound? 

2terps

I was told by my peri that 24 weeks was my first "goal"....I was put on bedrest for a shortening cervix at 22 weeks.

jd0614

Its the same for twins.  They won't try to stop labor until 24 weeks.

Disney102399

I went into labor @ 23wks3d with my first twins...  They did try and stop the labor.  I ended up delivering my son the next day.  He lived for 14 hours.  I made it to 24wks with my daughter but she was too small...  She lived for 40 hours.  I don't want to scare you or anyone else that might read this post...  When I went into the hospital they wanted to get me to 28wks.  That was my first goal with my 2nd pregnancy...  From what they told me is that everyday after 24wks is important.  Then 28wks, 30wks and so on. 

Temp159135562506975

I did a bit of research on this last month- b/c a friend of mine gave birth to her twins at 23w... they lived about a week and then she lost them... it's horrible.

From what i read- 24w is the time that they WILL do life saving measures... earlier than 24w it's touch and go, and depends on the doc/hospital if they will even try. 22w is the earliest a child has ever survived birth- and that was a singleton.

horrible to even think about.

Mandy Ellsworth

That is all good to know.  I've been very curious and I think I have the kind of Dr who doesn't want to scare me, so when I have worries like pre-mature labor, she says to just not worry about that, that only if it happens will we deal with it.

weemodin

I think they have about a 20-30% chance of survival at 24 weeks, 50% at 25, and 75% at 26.  That said, many born that early have severe developmental delays and/or handicaps.  Others come out relatively unscathed.

Generally speaking, preemie girls do better than boys, babies of african descent do better than white babies, etc.  However, that's not a hard and fast rule, either.

Here's to hoping you'll never need to worry about any of this!

almosttime7806

I went into labor at 23 wks 3 days and the hospital did everything they could to stop it.  It worked and I held off labor for 19 days and delivered our sons at 26 wks 1 day - and they are doing great now.  When I was first admitted into the hospital, a neonatologist sat down with my husband and I and said that they strongly urged us not to try and resuscitate if our boys were born before 24 weeks.  They viewed it as immoral to try and save them at such an early gestation and felt that if they beat the extremely small odds of survival, they had a long road of problems ahead. 

Once I hit 24 weeks, the doctors said they would try and resuscitate if we wanted, but babies born between 24 and 25 weeks gestation had a 50% chance of survival, and of those who survived, 50% have long term disabilities.  So it was up to us to decide what to do if they were born between 24 and 25 weeks (not a fun decision to think about).

Our first huge goal was 26 weeks, at which point the doctors would gladly resuscitate and said their chances of survival and normal development were much higher.  I'm almost positive that once you hit 28 weeks, the survival rate is 80 or 90%.  

That being said, I'm sure different hospitals have different policies - this was just our experience.  Oh and it was the same policy for singletons too - not just twins.  HTH!