pixaby - baby footThey called it "wimpy white boy syndome" -- they being the nurses in my oldest daughter's neonatal intensive care unit. She was born prematurely 10 weeks early due to a placental abruption. She had plenty of complications, but they said that her survival rate was good, even better than average for her gestational age...all because she was a girl.

I thought maybe they were saying that to give me more hope and confidence. It certainly helped in this way, but, they maintained, girl babies do tend to be more resilient.

Fast forward 10 years, and a new study by the University of Adelaide in Australia, the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, and the Pregnancy Outcome Unit of SA Health is published in July in the journal PLOS ONE showing that baby boys are much more susceptible to life-threatening complications at birth than girls.

The study looked at more than 574,000 births in South Australia from 1981-2011.

According to the study, boy babies are more likely to be born spontaneously preterm -- by 27% more at 20-24 weeks, 24% more at 30-33 weeks, and 17% at 34-36 weeks. In addition, mothers carrying boys are more likely to suffer from gestational diabetes or pre-eclampsia.

Girl babies were only more at risk of being involved in a pregnancy requring preterm delivery for early onset pre-eclampsia.

Research leader Claire Roberts, pediatrics and reproductive health professor at the University of Adelaide, said in a press release that the major conclusion from the study is that the evidence is very clear that a baby's gender has a direct association with pregnancy outcomes.

Lead author Dr. Petra Verburg from the University of Groningen, currently based at Adelaide, continued on in the press release that this study shows a need for specific interventions tailored to boy and girl babies.

The researchers have and are continuing to investigate other factors in pregnancy complications, such as the differences between baby genders on the gene expression in the placenta. The best way to interpret the results of this latest study is when interfaced with the results of previous and future studies.

As my pregnancy with my son was the healthiest of my 3 children -- with both my girls experiencing complications during pregnancy that led to preterm births -- I know that there are no hard-and-fast rules when it comes to baby gender and risks of complications. But as a breastfeeding counselor, especially with newborns, it has not failed my notice that there certainly does seem to be more pregnancies with complications and preterm births associated with boys -- not to mention more breastfeeding challenges with boys, but that's a different story...

I look forward to the day when pregnancy health care can be more tailored to the factors that many of us didn't even consider with our own previous pregnancies -- like baby gender -- to ensure not only the healthiest pregnancy and birth outcome, but also to help women feel more ownership of this huge part of being a woman.

But while I hope that these studies help to lead to more understanding overall, I feel we have to be careful to be well-informed decision-makers and active participants in our pregnancy health care so that these research results don't necessarily lead straight to more medical interventions.