How Can I Ensure The Most Accurate Due Date Possible
Start tracking your periods before you get pregnant so that you can easily tell how far along you are. You can use a calendar or period tracker app, such as Period Calendar, Flo and Clue, all of which are free on iPhone and Android.
Then, if you get pregnantwhether its planned or a surpriseyoull know the start of your last period and can accurately assess how far along you are. At that point, you can sign up for Todays Parents free week-by-week pregnancy newsletter to learn about your babys development, how youll be feeling and what to expect.
Free pregnancy apps like The Bump, What to Expect and Pregnancy Tracker include pregnancy calendar calculatorsto estimate your due date, as well as functions to help track the size of your baby, anticipate pregnancy symptoms and plan for doctors appointments and other key dates .
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Symptoms Dwindle In The Second Trimester
Many of the body changes and symptoms of pregnancy you experience in the first trimester will start to fade once you reach the second trimester. Talk with your doctor about any symptoms that interfere with your daily life. Together, you can find relief and comfort for your pregnancy.
To receive week-by-week guidance about early pregnancy symptoms and more, sign up for our Im Expecting newsletter.
How Many Months Pregnant Are You
Women who are planning to have a child expect their pregnancy to last about nine months. But many expectant fathers and mothers wonder how many weeks there are in nine months. The average pregnancy lasts forty weeks from the first day of the last normal menstrual period.
To get a more specific prediction of pregnancy duration, most physicians and midwives use a gestation calculation like the one below to provide a personalized estimate. You can use the first date of your last period or the date of conception if you know it.
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How Many Weeks Months And Trimesters In A Pregnancy
Pregnancy math can get confusing pretty quickly. Are you in week 12 or 13? Your first trimester or your second? Three months pregnant or four?
Fortunately, the answers are simple once you know what to count. Heres what you need to know about how many weeks, months and trimesters there are in a pregnancy and where you fit in.
Sore Throat In Pregnancy: What To Take To Get Better
There are several remedies available for sore throat in pregnancy.
The important thing to do is therefore to choose the most suitable for your situation and the stage of gestation in which you are. The use of drugs , unless otherwise advised by your doctor, is obviously to be avoided. However, you can try to stop the problem by filling up on vitamins , thus strengthening your immune system.
In case of persistent pain, you can always ask your doctor for help with the use of sprays or anti-inflammatory substances, useful for giving relief. Only in case of active bacterial infection can the doctor recommend the use of specific antibiotics and to be taken under his strict control.
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Your Last Menstrual Period
You’ve just gotten your last period, at least for a while: The lining of your uterus is shedding, taking with it last month’s unfertilized egg. But that’s not all that’s happening. A new cycle is beginning, one that is the starting point for your pregnancy.
Your menstrual cycle is orchestrated by a symphony of hormones working in concert with one another. The first to kick in is FSH which you guessed it stimulates the follicles to mature, some faster than others.
A second hormone, lutenizing hormone , increases around day 5 and also works with FSH to stimulate the follicles. Each follicle contains an egg, and each month only one follicle becomes the dominant one, destined for ovulation.
As the follicles mature, they produce another hormone, estrogen, which does two things. First, it encourages the lining of the uterus to begin thickening again. Second, once a high enough level of estrogen is reached, it will trigger a spike in the production of LH.
That surge of LH causes the egg from the most mature follicle to burst through the ovarian wall to meet Mr. Right the lucky sperm that will turn that eager egg into a baby-in-the-making and make your body’s prep work worth all the effort.
Believe it or not, the countdown to delivery day begins now, during the period before fertilization even though egg and sperm haven’t even been in the same room .
What Happens During Week 3
The fertilized egg moves down your fallopian tube and divides into more and more cells. It reaches your uterus about 34 days after fertilization. The dividing cells then form a ball that floats around in the uterus for about 23 days.
Pregnancy begins when the ball of cells attaches to the lining of your uterus. This is called implantation. It usually starts about 6 days after fertilization and takes about 34 days to be complete.
Pregnancy doesnt always happen, even if an egg is fertilized by a sperm. Up to half of all fertilized eggs pass out of your body when you get your period, before implantation is complete.
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How To Calculate Pregnancy Weeks And Months Accurately
When do you give birth to a baby? Is it after the completion of nine months or 40 weeks are both the same, or different? If you have just tested positive for pregnancy, you might be doing those calculations already, trying to figure out the due date for your delivery. Dont be surprised if you are coming up with a different date every time you calculate.
MomJunction understands the difficulty in narrowing down on the exact weeks of pregnancy and thereby the due date. In this post, we will tell you how to calculate pregnancy weeks and months. Read on!
How Many Weeks Pregnant
Pregnancy period usually lasts from 37 to 42 weeks from the first day of your last menstrual period. The number of weeks depends on the date of last menstrual period. This online calculator is used to find how many weeks you are pregnant. Additionally you can also find your due date and the number of weeks until your due date.
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Frequent Urination And Incontinence During Early Pregnancy
During pregnancy, your body increase the amount of blood it pumps. This causes the kidney to process more fluid than usual, which leads to more fluid in your bladder.
Hormones also play a large role in bladder health. You may find yourself running to the bathroom more frequently or accidentally leaking.
Your Baby At Weeks 1 And 2
This week the groundwork is laid for the big O ovulation the all important first step toward the making of the baby of your dreams. And like those dreams, the baby action is all in your head right now where the hypothalamus, the control center in your brain, works with its partner in reproduction, the pituitary gland, to start releasing hormones.
These hormones called FSH and LH prompt the ovaries to get cracking on some eggs, ripening one to maturity within its follicle. All this egg action causes the ovaries to crank up production of two other powerful hormones, estrogen and progesterone. These hormones, the dynamic duo of the reproductive system, get the reproductive party in your uterus started, telling the uterus to thicken its lining, forming a blood-pumped cushion in anticipation of hosting a fertilized egg.
Midway through your menstrual cycle around day 14 if you have an average 28-day cycle the dominant follicle in the ovary swells and then ruptures, releasing the mature egg of the month. That egg, the one with your babys name on it, bursts through the walls of the ovary and is immediately swept up into the fringed opening of the fallopian tube, where it will take a six day odyssey down to the uterus. Ovulation has just occurred.
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Working Out Your Due Date
1-minute read
Once you have confirmed that you are pregnant, you will want to find out when your baby is due to arrive. The average pregnancy is calculated at 282 days from the first day of your last menstrual period.
However babies rarely keep to an exact timetable, so a full-term pregnancy can be anywhere between 37 and 42 weeks. A baby born before 37 weeks is considered to be premature and anything past 42 weeks is considered overdue.
Due dates are usually calculated on your last period instead of the date of conception because of a number of reasons.
- Although the average woman ovulates approximately 2 weeks after her period, the exact time is not always known.
- Once an egg has been released, it can remain fertile for up to 24 hours.
- Sperm can last for up to 5 days after intercourse to fertilise an egg.
If your periods are irregular or you are unsure of the date, an ultrasound will help determine the development of the embryo and your due date. Ultrasound scans can be done at any stage of pregnancy after the first 6 weeks. The best timing for an ultrasound to determine the due date is between 8 weeks and 13 weeks 6 days.
You can use the Pregnancy, Birth and Baby due date calculator to work out when your baby is due.
Some doctors will refer to your due date as ‘expected date of confinement’ or EDC.
Week 1 Pregnant Ultrasound: Do You Need It
You dont really need an ultrasound during the first week of pregnancy. However, your doctor might perform one if you havent had a pre-conceptional checkup or if youve had trouble conceiving. At this point, an ultrasound can help diagnose anatomical abnormalities that might make it harder for you to conceive, such as fibroids or polycystic ovarian syndrome.
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Will I Get A More Accurate Due Date Later In The Pregnancy
You will have your first appointment with the midwife, the ‘booking appointment’, between 8 weeks and 12 weeks pregnant. Here you will be given a scan and receive an accurate date for your baby’s birth. But if you’re impatient to know when your baby will arrive, then our pregnancy calculator tool gives you an estimate due date without the wait.
Not pregnant yet?
Changes In Your Body At 1 Week Pregnant
Again, no noticeable physical changes take place during the first week, although many internal changes are happening. Common symptoms include digestive problems like gas, constipation, tender breasts, fatigue, mood swings, morning sickness, and hormonal changes.
These symptoms vary from woman to woman, and most women dont feel these changes until after the second week.
Doctors advise that the first week of pregnancy is your get out of jail free week. If your diet isnt perfect, or if you have a glass of wine with dinner, your pregnancy isnt likely to be significantly affected.
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Getting A More Accurate Date
Dating your pregnancy by your last period is a simple way to estimate how far along you are, but it isnt always accurate because:
- You might not know exactly when your last period started
- Women can have cycles of different lengths, which means that the time between your period and ovulation can vary
- Some women experience spotting or bleeding in early pregnancy, which can sometimes be mistaken for a period, so you might be dating your pregnancy from the wrong point
However, this doesnt mean that its impossible to work out exactly how pregnant you are. Youll get the most accurate date for your pregnancy when you have your first ultrasound scan. By checking your babys development and measuring him or her, we can work out how far along you are. Well tell you how many weeks pregnant you are so that youll be able to check our pregnancy week by week guide and plan ahead for your pregnancy.
Calculating Your Due Date
How can you call this your first week of pregnancy if you’re not even pregnant? Its extremely hard for your practitioner to pinpoint the precise moment pregnancy begins .
While theres no mistaking the start of your period, the exact day of ovulation can be hard to nail down. Whats more, sperm from your partner can hang out in your body for several days before your egg comes out to greet it. Likewise, your egg can be kept waiting for up to 24 hours for late sperm to make their appearance.
So in order to give all pregnancies some standard timing, most practitioners use the first day of your last menstrual period as the starting line of your 40-week pregnancy. Still confused? Think of it as a head start you’re clocking in roughly two weeks of pregnancy before you even conceive!
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Pregnancy Term & Due Date
Pregnancy is a term used to describe a woman’s state over a time period during which one or more offspring develops inside of a woman. Childbirth usually occurs approximately 38 weeks after conception, or about 40 weeks after the last menstrual period. The World Health Organization defines a normal pregnancy term to last between 37 and 42 weeks. During a person’s first OB-GYN visit, the doctor will usually provide an estimated date at which the child will be born, or due date. Alternatively, the due date can also be estimated based on a person’s last menstrual period.
While the due date can be estimated, the actual length of pregnancy depends on various factors, including age, length of previous pregnancies, and weight of the mother at birth.1 However, there are still more factors affecting natural variation in pregnancy terms that are not well understood. Studies have shown that fewer than 4% of births occur on the exact due date, 60% occur within a week of the due date, and almost 90% occur within two weeks of the due date.2 As such, while it is possible to be fairly confident that a person’s child will be born within about two weeks of the due date, it is currently not possible to predict the exact day of birth with certainty.
If You Are In Your Fifth Week Of Pregnancy Why Are You Referred To As Four Weeks Pregnant
Sarah Owen, author of The Complete Guide To Pregnancy And Child Care, helps clear the confusion about pregnancy weeks by relating them to a babys age. When a baby is one year old, she completes the first 12 months of her life. Though she enters the second year, she is called one-year-old. Similarly, when you complete the first week of pregnancy, you are known to be one-week pregnant, even though you enter the second week.
A quick look to understand the terms and counting of pregnancy weeks:
- In your first week of pregnancy, you will be referred to as being zero weeks pregnant.
- In your second week of pregnancy, you will be referred to as being one week pregnant.
- In your third week of pregnancy, you will be referred to as being two weeks pregnant.
And so on.
It is for this reason that when you miss your first period, you are four weeks pregnant even though you are in your fifth week of pregnancy .
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How Do I Calculate My Due Date
Still havent checked in with the doc about your estimated due date? Its calculated counting from the first day of your last menstrual period instead of the day you conceived. So try to remember the first day of your LMP and add 40 weeks to that.
If you like math, you can also calculate your due date with the following formula:
- Subtract three months from the first day of your LMP
- Add seven days
- Add one year
For example, if the first day of your LMP was 6/2/2020, subtract three months to get 3/2/2020. Add seven days and you’ll get 3/9/2020. Finally, add one year to find your estimated due date of 3/9/2021.
Dating Pregnancy Using Ultrasound
Ultrasound in the first trimester is the most accurate method of dating pregnancy. During the scan, baby is measured and the age of pregnancy is estimated by comparing baby’s size against recorded averages. If there is a significant difference between gestational age according to LMP and gestational age according to the ultrasound, you may be given a new gestational age and due date based on the ultrasound measurements.
Your pregnancy may also be dated by ultrasound measurement if an LMP formula was not appropriate for your pregnancy for any reason. LMP formulas are not suitable in several situations including the following: LMP is not known or is not certain, birth control pills were taken in the two months before LMP, the menstrual cycle is irregular, you are carrying multiples .
Although the age of pregnancy based on ultrasound measurements is more accurate than the age of pregnancy based on LMP, both are estimates and not definitive statements.
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Convert Weeks Into Months How Does This Work
The Weeks into Months Pregnancy Calculator converts the amount of time youve been pregnant from weeks into the equivalent number of months. If you want to find out how far along into your pregnancy you are, the Weeks into Months Converter is the most efficient tool for calculating and recording your pregnancy.
To use the Weeks into Months Pregnancy Converter, simply fill in the required fields of the Pregnancy Calculator with the length of your pregnancy in weeks. Once youve pressed the calculate button, youll immediately be shown how far along you are in months!
