when are babies born relative to their due date?

[Cyathea]

That's why we get the strong nesting instinct too in the later weeks of pregnancy.

And we are the ONLY species on earth that create a 'nest' to birth in, then walk off, and give birth elsewhere...how crazy is that??

(Homebirth all the way... That's what optimises my birthing hormones...)

[AnyDream]

I'd like to see a graph or some data showing when babies are born relative to the due date that the doctor assigned early on in the pregnancy.

See Figure 7.4 on page 83 of the following publication, which shows The distribution of births by gestational age in 1999 (most recent published).

From The AIHW publication Australia's babies, their health and wellbeing.

ETA - you could contact the AIHW library to find out whether this data has been cross-compared with other demographic information such as age of mother, different countries of origin etc (this info was collected at both of my baby's births in different states, I'm sure it's all fed up the chain statistically).

[satya]

I don't know where you can get those stats from but I remember that in the Belly Buddy group I was in about 50% went early & 50% went late (based on EDD). I don't remember anyone going on the due date, but I could be wrong.

Some of those who went late were 2nd or 3rd time mums and some of those who went early were first time mums so no trend there either. I was a first time mum and gave birth at 38/4.

[Jewel]

DS1 born at 39weeks.
DS2 born at 39week+2days.