Counting Pregnancy Time- Week by Week
If you are pregnant, congratulations! You are about to embark on one of the most exciting journeys of your life, that of becoming a mother. The whole time of pregnancy fills with wonder, as you go through the changes each day. You transform into a fully blossomed mother as your baby grows within your belly. You will go from having a one celled organism travel down from your ovaries and implant into your womb, where it will grow into a full-sized, around six to ten pounds at birth. It is an amazing time really, when you think about all the remarkable changes taking place within you.
Pregnancy timing happens with several different methods. Many are confused by the exact age of the pregnancy verses the age of the fetus. Let us look at it from the biological standpoint to gather a better understanding. The first day of bleeding in the cycle is day one of that particular cycle. In essence, when the professionals talk about the age of the pregnancy, they are referring to the age from the first day of menstrual bleeding of the cycle you became pregnant. In a normal cycle, ovulation happens around the fourteenth day, and within a day of ovulation, conception occurs.
Physicians count pregnancy from the first day of the last menstrual cycle, this is why this is one of the first questions they ask you. By the time ovulation occurs some two weeks later you are technically 2 weeks into the pregnancy. If pregnancy goes by 40 weeks, then the due date configures by counting 40 weeks from the first day of the last menstrual cycle. Another quick way to configure the due date is to take the last menstrual cycle start day, subtract three months, then add seven days. For example:
Last menstrual cycle start: March 1.
Subtract three months, you have: December 1.
Add seven days, you have an “estimated due date” or EDD of: December 8.
Pregnancy is also counted by months, for a total of 9 months. In counting 9 months, you would start from conception date and count forward 9 months. Conception happened on March 14 - go forward 9 months to December 14 - Subtract 6 days, and you have the EDD of December 8.
Pregnancy goes by trimesters too. First trimester is weeks 1 through 13. Second trimester is weeks 14-26 and third trimester is weeks 27-40.
Technically a mother is considered full term when she reaches the 37th week. A baby born from week 37 and on is a full term baby and they will do just fine. A baby born prior to the 37th week is preterm or premature. If labor happens prior to week 37, depending on the circumstance, the doctor may try to stop labor to allow the baby more time in-utero to grow and mature. A baby is viable (able to survive outside the womb) at 24 weeks, but the chances of the baby not making it are greater, the earlier a baby is born. Ideally, you want the baby to stay put until 37 weeks or later.
