My baby is iugr and the cord blood flow was lowish in one of my biweekly nsts, my ob told me about steroid shots to develop her lungs just in case she comes early.

After reading tons of research papers on this and my ob himself also reading all the newest research, we realized that if we are giving birth even at 34 weeks, the risks of steroid shots outweigh the benefits.

Basically, most babies born after 34 weeks will not have fatality or long term issues because of lung development, and can be managed with oxygen in modern hospitals, so steroid shots have only short term benefits.

But a few new studies show long term mental development issues for babies who took steroid shots in uterus. Especially in later terms or repeated ones. Higher chance of adhd as adults and neurotic problems in general, all detectable when they are over 8-10 years old. Same studies have been repeated in animal trials.

Research is still new on this. But I wanted you all to be ready - obs have been giving it away like candy to any woman at any risk of preterm delivery, even at 36 weeks. Obs aren’t there to see how this affects your child when they are teens, so you should push back unless the threat is real.

Edit: adding a couple of links - btw, I didn’t think I needed to clarify that obviously there are trade offs and the OBs need to assess risk vs benefits in every case. The problem I am highlighting is even my Stanford professor OB did not consider any risk for this, and only benefits. After reading more about it, he realized also that we need to assess it on a case by case basis.

For the paper my OB sent me, Google this title and you will see the pdf as the first result. They cite a lot of other research so you can dig deeper if you want, but they do a good job of summarizing existing work also:

“Antenatal corticosteroid therapy for reduction of neonatal respiratory morbidity and mortality from preterm delivery”