# Are Doctors Required to record the exact minute a baby is born?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 3, 2012, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258 "2012-01-03T15:25:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2012, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258/1 "2012-01-03T15:25:18Z")
A couple sets of twins were born before and after midnight on New Years Eve. The press is having fun reporting they were born in different years. A typical human interest story.
Is a Doctor _required_ to record the exact minute the baby pops out of the vagina? Can he use some discretion and round the time off? Does the medical board care if a birth is recorded at Dec 31 11:56pm versus Jan 1 12:03 AM? Years ago, the family physicians pocket watch probably wasn’t that accurate anyhow.
I’m not sure I’d want to saddle my kids with being born in a different year. Twins already have enough grief in life because they are “special”. They got to carry around this story of being born in a different year the rest of their life. For example when they register for school, get a social security card etc.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2012, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258/2 "2012-01-03T15:34:47Z")
If I may piggyback on this question, a story here in Chicago about the first baby of 2012 had me :dubious:. It was a photo finish; the “winner” was born one one-hundredth of a second past midnight, while the runner-up was born either three- or four-hundredths of a second past midnight. Huh? How can you possibly determine something like that to that degree of accuracy?
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2012, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258/3 "2012-01-03T15:41:54Z")
If they want to time births to the actual, second then what is considered a birth?
Is it when the head crowns? Or when the whole baby is out? Or when the cord is cut?
I always thought the time was estimated. Maybe when the doctor is washing up after the birth, he glances at his watch. A few minutes either way shouldn’t matter.
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2012, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258/4 "2012-01-03T15:57:45Z")
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> If I may piggyback on this question, a story here in Chicago about the first baby of 2012 had me :dubious:. It was a photo finish; the “winner” was born one one-hundredth of a second past midnight, while the runner-up was born either three- or four-hundredths of a second past midnight. Huh? How can you possibly determine something like that to that degree of accuracy?
The [Trib says](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-02/news/ct-met-first-new-year-baby-20120102_1_first-baby-baby-girl-speedy-delivery)
> [@](#):
>
> But those times, hospital officials acknowledge, are somewhat artificial. In both cases, a doctor or nurse noted out loud that the child had emerged completely from the womb. With that, a member of the birth team pressed a computer key to log the time.
>
> That’s the standard method of recording the moment of birth, said Mike Maggio, spokesman for Advocate Christ Medical Center, and is done the same way no matter what day it is.
So nobody is standing there with a stopwatch. It is silly to note records to the hundredth of a second when human action is involved that could make the time vary easily ±1 minute and possibly more. This is a case of false precision–the event cannot be determined that precisely just because a computer is capable of providing that precision. This also partially answers the OP, although I’m sure different hospitals and different jurisdictions manage it differently. (In any case I doubt it is the doctor him/herself who determines the time and records it, although IANAD and I don’t know for sure. I was present for the births of my two children and the doctor didn’t write anything, it was all done by nurses.)
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2012, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258/5 "2012-01-03T16:22:36Z")
So they time stamp births with a computer program these days? I guess there’s no doctor’s discretion or rounding the time by a minute or so anymore.
Wow, I guess they’ll tattoo bar codes on baby’s butts before much longer. 😉
I do recall some cesareans are scheduled so that the baby is born on New Years. Parents like having New Years babies.
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### Author:  [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2012, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258/6 "2012-01-03T16:30:55Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> I do recall some cesareans are scheduled so that the baby is born on New Years. Parents like having New Years babies.
I thought it was the 31st for a tax deduction!
My brother was born early on my father’s birthday - or late the day before. My mother thought she remembered the doctor saying something about marking it on the 22nd instead of the 21st so he would have the same birthday as his father. She was slightly out of it, and my dad wasn’t in the room, of course, so we don’t really know.
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### Author:  [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258/7 "2012-01-03T17:21:41Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> I always thought the time was estimated. Maybe when the doctor is washing up after the birth, he glances at his watch. A few minutes either way shouldn’t matter.
It’s going to matter to the IRS.
11:59PM - 12-31-11 means having a dependent for all for 2011; 12:01AM - 01-01-12 doesn’t.
Of course, any day _other_ than December 31st shouldn’t be a big deal.
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### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258/8 "2012-01-03T18:32:17Z")
Purely anecdotally - for the reasonably uncomplicated birth of all 3 of my kids over the past decade, the obstetrician simply looked at the wall clock after he was “done” and was filling out the paperwork, and subtracted however long he thought it had been since the baby came out. So no, not precise at all. Maybe if it had been close to midnight he’d have been more cognizant of the exact moment, since it would have been slightly more important then.
I question the linked article’s claim that all births are done by having a “member of the birth team” press a key just as the baby clears the birth canal. I’d think the members of the birth team are a little too busy to have one of them just standing idly by a keyboard.
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258/9 "2012-01-03T19:51:33Z")
Some hospitals have medical recorders, with ipads or laptops, who accompany doctors on rounds, during procedures, and in the ER. Recording is their job and they’re not qualified or allowed to do anything else.
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2012, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258/10 "2012-01-04T13:08:30Z")
I’d often wondered how they timed the birth, as I naively thought the actual birth process was a pretty drawn-out and gradual process, so when do you actually count the baby as having been born - head, torso, legs…?
Now, having become a father a few months ago, I realise that although the labour takes a long time, the actual brith is pretty darn quick. From seeing the head appearing it was only maybe 4 or 5 minutes to having the shoulders appear, and then one more push and - surf’s up! :eek: It’s definitely easy to pinpoint the moment of birth to within a couple of seconds, if you wanted.
I remember looking at my watch and noting the time as 8.33pm but the official birth record says 8.35pm. I’m guessing they round off to the nearest 5 minutes. Actually, during the labour I noticed that the wall clock was doing really wacky things - freezing, hands spinning rapidly backwards etc. It was one of those radio-controlled ones, presumably meant to ensure an accurate time is available, but it was malfunctioning somehow. I certainly don’t recall anyone with a computer keyboard pressing a button. Having said that, it was a premature birth and so probably more hectic than usual.
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### Author:  [@SunSandSuffering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunSandSuffering)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2012, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-doctors-required-to-record-the-exact-minute-a-baby-is-born/608258/11 "2012-01-04T13:44:06Z")
During our son’s birth (in the UK) the midwife continually made notes about what was going on - drugs administered, heartbeats, position, temperature, etc and noted the time by glancing at her watch. Same thing when the baby was actually birthed, a quick glance at the watch and a scribbled note. A regular wind up analogue nurse’s watch, not very accurate but good enough.
[Edited for typo.]