FRIDAY, Jan. 17, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- It's a common refrain in the delivery room: If the mother's suffering complications during labor and delivery, it must be a boy. Now, new research finds that giving birth to boys indeed makes difficulties more likely.
Researchers at the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin reached that conclusion based on an analysis of the births of 4,070 males and 4,005 females from 1997 to 2000.
The study, appearing in the Jan. 18 issue of the British Medical Journal, found that male births were significantly more likely to result in longer labor and more likely to require the hormone oxytocin (to stimulate contractions), fetal blood sampling, use of an instrument like forceps in delivery, or birth by Caesarean section.
"If women are encountering complication, we say almost to break the anxiety that it's a boy," said Dr. Maeve A. Eogan, the study's co-author and a specialist registrar at the Dublin hospital.
"We wanted to see if there was any truth in this, or if it was just an old wives' tale. Now, we can say confidently that it is not an old wives' tale," she added.
The study focused only on first-time mothers who gave spontaneous birth at full-term and excluded multiple births, induced labors, and infants with congenital abnormalities.
Labor is generally shorter with births after the first child, and induced labor normally would take longer and is more likely to bring on complications, Eogan said.
Researchers said it's unclear why mothers giving birth to boys are more likely to have complications.
Male babies' larger head size may contribute to longer labor, more use of hormones to stimulate contractions and more delivery operations, the study said. But the head size would not account for other complications such as increased fetal stress in males.
"There must be something in the baby's maleness that makes him more vulnerable to the stress of labor," Eogan said. "It may just be an inherent vulnerability."
The study found no significant differences between the sexes for other complications, including gestation or the need for antibiotics during labor. And labor and delivery complications notwithstanding, the study found male babies were no more likely require neonatal care for problems after birth.
But giving birth to a boy may affect the mother for years afterward. A study of a pre-industrial tribe, published in the journal Science last May, concluded that giving birth to each baby boy reduces a mother's life span by 34 weeks.
That's because boy babies are more demanding not just in the womb, the study said, but also later in life, when they don't help out around the house. Conversely, researchers found, a mother's lifespan increased with each daughter she bore.
More information
For information on labor and delivery, visit Epregnancy. Or check out the
National Women's Health Information Center for tips on a healthy pregnancy.
