Why is it that babies when born aren't "nine"months old already instead starting at zero hours/day etc?

Question

I guess its for the whole birthday scene and that most people don't know their conception date but if you think about it, we are all nine months (more of less) older than we all say we are. Does anyone know why those nine months are dimissed from our age?

Answer 1

Some laws and some people don't count a person as being alive until they are able to breathe out of the womb. Up until that point, if you die, you'll be labeled some scientific term relating to your stage of development, not a baby or a human. But this is changing. Now if you kill a pregnant woman you could be charge not only for her death, but for the death of the unborn child. If this becomes the norm, than maybe a change in determining the age of someone that has come out of the womb might follow.

But even then, a baby still wouldn't be considered 9 months old. It would be a little bit older than that I think. I think technically a woman is actually pregnant for 10 months. You have your strange cases like me, who just never wanted to come out, and your premies that wanted to get the hell out of there as fast as possible of course :)

Someone asked this question before on another website. You might be interested in that discussion, the link is below.

http://ehealthforum.com/health/topic7978.html

Answer 2

For the following reasons:
1. Most of those months aren't times we can survive on our own.
2. Age only refers to how long a person has been living outside the womb; that's just the way it is.
3. Many people don't know the exact day there babies were conceived.

My question for you: Why is it an issue?

Answer 3

I'll really add mush to the soup. In many Oriental areas all children are one year old as of Jan 1 next. Some of them count from normal date of conception. We count from day of birth because it is easier to keep legal records. Remember, the first child can be born anytime. The second one takes nine months.
Vaya con DIOS

Answer 4

You know, I thought about that ages ago, before I was even married! But now I think I know why. The day you are born outside of the womb is the day your "life" starts. Now believe me, I know babies are definitely alive before they are born, but they aren't able to really survive on their own before that. Since my daughter was a preemie and needed Neonatal care; it was very strange at first b/c we had to correct her age. She's actually OLDER than she truly "should" be. She was born exactly 15 weeks early, at 25 weeks, 0 days. So we had to correct her age for developmental milestones for the first 2 years of her life. My due date was April 7th, 2002, but she was born December 24th, 2001. When I brought her home from the NICU 79 days later, on March 13th, 2002, she technically wasn't even supposed to be born yet, but here she was; almost 3 months old!!!

Answer 5

My guess would be because it's called your "birthday" and you aren't "birthed" for nine months. The baby is technically a fetus in the womb, not a "baby" yet.

Answer 6

because nobody can agree if a baby is a baby or not before it is born. Hence, the abortion debate.
Also, they can't come down to the exact conception date. There is a 2week margin of error on that one.

Answer 7

Wow i never thought about it. i guess they count from the time that you are on your own outside the womb, but then what about those poor little babies that need neonatal care? i really dont know!!! wow now i have another question to add to the unanswerable questions list lol lol

Answer 8

hmmmmm. i am guessing it is because a baby cannot survive outside the womb until it is born. and there are so many obstacles and milestones and stages. then you have babies that come sooner, later. good question though!

Answer 9

Because you are not considered a fully formed human being till you are born.

Answer 10

Because we count age from BIRTH and not from conception.