Leap Year: Would you want to give birth today?
Feb 28, 2012, 8:32 PM | Updated: Feb 29, 2012, 6:08 am
Tammy Gerencser, 42, right, talks with Dr. Michael Cacciatore. Gerencser is scheduled to have a C-section, Wednesday, Feb. 29. Most people born on Feb. 29 relish their uniqueness, and mothers with scheduled C-sections don't shun the day. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Between 20 and 30 babies are expected to be born at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle Wednesday, joining the roughly 200,000 Americans who will celebrate their birthday just once every four years.
Some parents, however, will do whatever it takes to avoid giving birth on February 29.
“Unfortunately, some people don’t want to have their babies on Leap Year, so we keep trying to work around it,” said Dr. Eleanor Friele with Swedish. “They don’t want to be induced, they don’t want a cesarean, or they try to get it scheduled beforehand. I delivered one of my long-term patients early just so her baby wouldn’t accidentally come on Leap Year. ”
Dr. Friele said many parents, however, embrace the uniqueness of the day and the lifelong oddity that comes along with it.
“I think they think it’s funny; they only have to do a birthday party every four years,” Friele said. “Fate has chosen this and this is kind of a humorous start to their baby’s life.”
An extra day is added to the calendar every four years in order to keep it in alignment with the Earth’s revolutions around the sun. The odds of being born on Leap Year are one in 1,461, which is the number of days in a year, times four, plus one.
“It’s just so ridiculous, especially the older you get to have a very different birthday,” said Ruth Ballweg, a Leap Year baby born on February 29, 1944. “That makes me 68, but it’s only my 17th birthday.”
Ballweg, who is from Seattle, was born the year President Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected to his third term. As she points out, Leap Years only occur during the years of presidential elections (if that helps you to remember).
When Ballweg was about to turn 5-years-old, she didn’t understand why she couldn’t mark her birthday on the calendar. She said she was extremely upset at the time, and didn’t believe her father when he tried to explain why February 29 came just once every four years.
“I was angry for about three or four months,” Ballweg said. “So my dad took me to see the county health officer in the town we lived in, and he explained to me for an hour about how there really was no February 29 every year.”
Despite her initial anger, Ballweg said she has grown to love her odd birthday, and encourages parents who give birth on Leap Year to embrace it as well.
“Try to see the fun in it,” she said. “I would view it as funny and the best birthday it is possible to have.”
