How Many Weeks Does Pregnancy Last?
How long does a normal pregnancy last? How many weeks are they? At what week has the fetus fully formed?
Any pregnant woman who is receiving prenatal attention will talk about the week she is in to find out about her baby’s progress. Here we explain the reality of how many weeks a pregnancy lasts .
How many weeks does a pregnancy last?
Faced with the first pregnancy, many doubts arise. Of these, how many weeks it will last is one of the most common. If you become a mother for the first time you will have been told about 9 months, but that’s not quite the case.
A normal pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks. If each month has about 4 weeks, is it a duration of… 10 months? Yes, 10 months. How is it possible?
9 months of pregnancy?
The accounts have been done well. A normal pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. But the count of the gestation time does not start from the same moment in which conception occurs. This is because we don’t always have an exact date. So when it comes time to talk about weeks, your doctor counts on the first day of your last period. So you will know that the fertilization took place two weeks before or two weeks after the reported date.
Despite this, it is important to know that when you do the first ultrasound, you will be able to know at what exact moment of gestation you are. In fact, it is one of the measurements that are made on this first image of your baby.
Taking this into consideration, the accounts are perfect. Pregnancy will develop between 38 and 42 weeks. It is within this range that the baby can be born fully formed. It is therefore considered that the pregnancy has come to an end.
Can a baby be born prematurely?
Sure it can. The weeks of gestation also determine the chances that the baby will finish forming and be born with greater confidence that he is healthy.
Babies born at eight months, or even seven months of gestation, survived and had no developmental difficulties. In multiple pregnancies , for example, there tends to be premature births. The reason is that the space available to fetuses is less, so they are born earlier, even if they do not necessarily have any type of complication.
The survival limit is 26 weeks, although at this point the baby is not yet 100% formed. This limit marks the point at which the baby could be born and survive, but it doesn’t mean it’s best for him.
The earlier the birth occurs, the greater the complications that the newborn can present.
How are the weeks of pregnancy divided?
Pregnancies are divided into three trimesters or phases, taking into account fetal development. These trimesters are distributed according to the week of gestation you are in:
- First quarter. Weeks 1-12. At week 5, your baby’s heart starts beating.
- Second quarter. Weeks 13-28. At week 15, the genitals have already fully formed, so it is already a boy or girl. Between week 17 and week 18, the baby can hear, even if he cannot distinguish sounds perfectly.
- Third quarter. Weeks 29-40. In this last trimester, the baby rapidly increases in size. In addition, at week 19 he begins to open and close his eyes, perceives a little light and can dilate his pupils.
Each trimester presents a milestone or major change in the baby’s development. There is a wealth of information on how the fetus is growing and which organs are developing.
You could go and read each week that you start and find out what happens in your body at this stage. This will help you make the wait more bearable.
As you approach week 38, the baby will begin to assume the preparatory position for delivery, the head position. In this position, adopted by most children, the head is wedged between the bones of the pelvis. From this moment on, the baby could be born at any time.
We recommend that you contact your doctor so that he can offer you any information you want on the development of the embryo and fetus during pregnancy.
