From Buckingham Palace have not given an official date for the birth of the baby, but have reported that the birth would be in mid-July.

Babies do not always arrive when expected and grandmothers often claim that first-births tend to lag, although this conclusion is based solely on conventional wisdom.
Recently, Allen Downey, associate professor of computer science at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts, made an analysis to find out if there is some truth to this old wives tale.

Downey demonstrated statistically that firstborns were actually slightly more likely to delay the birth until 41 weeks or more, compared with non firstborn (second parity, third delivery, etc..).

The results showed that a first-born baby has a probability between 15 and 16 percent of delaying birth, compared with the second or third parties who have a chance of delaying delivery between 9 and 10 percent. However, the study also found that firstborns were also more likely to be born prematurely, at 37 weeks or earlier.

So, in general, firstborns are less likely to be born at term.

Calculating your due date is only an estimate and is normal for babies to arrive two weeks before or after that day. Therefore, although parents may perceive that the birth is delayed, if it occurs two weeks after the estimated date, this is not entirely accurate.

When you are waiting for the first baby, the couple is too focused on the estimated birth date and expects the baby to be born on that date. But even if a woman thinks she knows exactly when she conceived, may still be two weeks apart up or down and is considered normal.

According to the Mayo Clinic, a woman may be more likely to be delayed delivery if the baby is a boy. Will the royal heir a child?

 

Picture by Carin Araujo, http://www.prtc.net/~carin (Stock.xchng #197853) [see page for license], via Wikimedia Commons