At the forty-week mark of pregnancy, your due date is the day you’ve been waiting for all these months. Your baby is physically ready to make his appearance in the world, but whether or not it all depends on one pregnancy hormone. Your doctor may have a non-stress test in your fortieth week of pregnancy.
Pregnancy Week 40: Your Baby is Born Ready .
The average baby weighs 7,20 pounds and is 21 inches long by the fortieth week of pregnancy. However, your baby may weigh between seven and nine pounds and be between eighteen and twenty-two inches long.
Your baby is fully developed and can live in the real world. What everyone is waiting for is a signal from the pituitary gland to release a pregnancy hormone called oxytocin. Oxytocin is responsible for labor contractions.
Pregnancy Week 40: Because your period is here!
Your due date is finally here. You don’t completely burst your bubble, but only about 2% of babies are actually born on time and about 50% of babies are born on time.
Health care providers be careful not to discharge the uterus beyond forty-two weeks. As frustrating as it may be for your period to come and go, just remember that your baby is due in less than two weeks.
Pregnancy Week 40: Non-Stus Test
Your doctor may do a non-stress test. In the pool test monitors your baby’s heart rate in uterine activity. Your doctor can do a test in the fortieth week of pregnancy to make a placenta, a navel; and let your baby do the contractions well.
You will have to sit in a comfortable chair with your feet up for one hour during the non-stress test. You will have two monitors in your stomach. One monitor will track your baby’s rate, while the other monitor will gauge uterine contractions.
Your doctor looks for an increase or decrease in heart rate when your uterus contracts. Your baby’s heart rate should increase with each contraction. If his heart rate sinks, then you could save him that day.
Even if your period has passed and you are still pregnant, remember that you will soon hold a little one in your arms.
For more pregnancy weeks and fetal development you can read:
Pregnancy Week 36
Pregnancy Week 37
Pregnancy Week 38
Pregnancy Week 39: First signs of labor
Click here to find more information on your pregnancy and baby development.
Sources:
Personal Use
Becomes Pregnant (2009). Pregnancy Calendar. Retrieved: April 8, 9, 2009. Web Site: fitpregnancy. com/calendar/40251887.html
Myers-Gorrie, Trula, Slone-McKinney, Emily, & Smith-Murray, Sharon (1998). Foundations of Maternal-New Nursing (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: W. B. Saunders Company.
What I Expect (2009). Retrieved: April 8, 9, 2009. Web Site: whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/landing.aspx
