Obstetricians inducing births to meet their conference schedules?

This is bizarre. From The Australian News:

An analysis has found the typical Australian obstetrics conference, lasting several days, causes 4 per cent of the expected births to be shifted, in most cases bringing it forward by a few days.





In Australia the authors claim this means 116 babies are born on a different date than nature intended, while in the US 755 births annually are affected.





“Since it is unlikely that parents take these conferences into account when conceiving their child, this suggests that medical professionals are timing births to suit their conference schedule,” wrote the study's authors from the Australian National University and Melbourne Business School.