Can You Time Your Pregnancy?

Susan, a 31-year-old special education teacher from Toronto, wanted to get pregnant at the right time to give birth in June so she could have the whole summer off and be ready to start school again come fall.

Kelly, a 35-year old accountant in Las Vegas, planned her first pregnancy around the busy tax season (Jan. 1 to April 15) so she wouldn't let her firm or clients down during crunch time.

And Jennifer, a 34-year-old corporate lawyer, didn't care when she got pregnant as long as her third trimester was not during the summer.

While all three women ultimately achieved healthy pregnancies, some were off by a season or two. Susan was able to time her maternity leave with summer recess. But Kelly had to hand over her accounts in advance of the busy season. And Jennifer ended up giving birth in early September, but thanks to the miracle of modern air conditioning, it wasn't as brutal as she anticipated.

Planning a Pregnancy Isn't Easy

"The problem is that we have bought into the idea that you can plan a pregnancy, and the fact is that many women wait to have a baby until they are ready to have a baby only to find out it's just not that easy," says Donnica Moore, MD, a women's health expert based in Far Hills, N.J.

"If you can time it to have your baby two weeks after the school semester ends and be back by the time it begins again in fall, that's wonderful, but very few women can do that and it is unrealistic for women to think that they can - especially the older they get even with perfect periods and no history of fertility problems," she tells WebMD.

But that shouldn't stop a girl from trying, she adds.

"If you feel very strongly that you want to time your pregnancy to be after a certain event, say after your medical boards if you are a medical student, it's fine to say that, 'Ideally I would like to get pregnant before X month,' but you have to be aware that for most women that is difficult to orchestrate."

The bottom line is that "there is no great time to be pregnant and no bad time to have a baby that you want," she says.

Be Realistic About Timing Pregnancy

Mark P. Leondires, MD, medical director of Reproductive Medical Associates of Connecticut in Norwalk, cautions against selecting specific seasons for reproductive reasons. Trying to perfectly time your pregnancy is "the kiss of death," he says.

"The problem is the expectation of getting pregnant when you think it going to happen, " he tells WebMD. "Routinely I find that when people set expectations, they set themselves up for disappointment."

That said, "if you want to deliver in the winter or March, I would probably say give yourself three months to work around instead of one," he says. "So if you want to deliver in March, that means sometime between February and April, so you are shooting to get pregnant in May to August," he says. In this scenario, a woman can avoid being too far along in their pregnancy during the hot summer months.

"In modern society with climate control, this typically doesn't matter, it's just a personal preference," he says, but Leondires is quick to add that "I have seen thousands of pregnant women, and certainly to be term in summer is miserable, so it makes more sense to be at 28 weeks and beyond in cooler months," he says.

Plus, he says "humans are more fertile in the spring for reasons we don't understand, so a woman may have a better chance for getting pregnant between February to May and aiming for a winter birth anyway," he says.

Beware of Stress When Getting Pregnant

But then again, women who give birth during the winter are the most likely to have suffered potentially dangerous complications in the preceding months, according to at least one study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Norwegian scientists found that mothers of children born in August had the lowest risk of preeclampsia (high blood pressure, swelling, and protein in the urine during pregnancy). However, among those who gave birth in the winter months, the risk for this potentially fatal complication was higher, particularly in December, when the risk was increased by between 20% and 30%.

Regardless of the season you are shooting for, scheduling is stressful. "If there is a relationship between stress and infertility, such planning will increase stress," he says.

"There obviously are people who try to target a certain time, although it is really hard to guarantee anyone will get pregnant in a certain time," says Lynn Westphal, MD, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. "Patients have to realize there is a good chance it may take longer to get pregnant than they expect."

"For various reasons, teachers many times will want to deliver in June, so they have the whole summer off. Some people don't want to be pregnant in summer - especially in the South when it is 100 degrees every day in August," she says.

But you can easily miss this window, she says. "I usually will have such patients start trying about nine months before they want to conceive because there is not a great way of making the timing perfect."

Seasons Don't Matter All That Much for Pregnancy

When it comes down to it, winter, spring, summer, or fall is a side issue when it comes to pregnancy, birth, and maternity or paternity leave, cautions Frank A. Chervenak, MD, professor and chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York.

Instead, other issues are perhaps more important. "The woman needs to consider whether there are other children in the home and what age they will be, or how her pregnancy would be affected if she were going through a stressful or demanding time at work," he says. "In broad strokes, she must consider how a pregnancy would impact her family, her work, and how it would impact her own psyche."

Certainly, he says, "at the end of a pregnancy, if you are out in the hot sun, it's a little bit more uncomfortable, but given the current state of air conditioning, this should be a secondary factor. I would advise a woman to make a decision based more on personal factors rather than trying to time her pregnancy for any season," he says.

Published July 18, 2005.

SOURCES: Donnica Moore, MD, women's health expert, Far Hills, N.J. Mark Leondires, medical director, Reproductive Medical Associates of Connecticut, Norwalk.; Lynn Westphal, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. Frank A. Chervenak, MD, professor and chairman, department of obstetrics and gynecology, Weill Medical College, Cornell University, New York.