What is considered a Full Term Pregnancy?
By: Julie Fletcher
There will be many questions and concerns that you have while pregnant and how your baby is growing and developing inside. For many women, the threat of a premature delivery is very real and can be scary to those parents who are faced with the chance of having an early birth. Finding all the information you need in order to be prepared is essential for the birth of any child whether they are early or a full term pregnancy. Having the details you need to prepare you and your loved ones for the oncoming birth of a new addition to the family can help ease any anxiety you may have about delivering anytime outside of your scheduled due date.
Only 4.5% of women will go into labour and deliver their babies on the proposed due date that was determined by a doctor. Each pregnancy and baby is different, and while some babies will not need as much time in the womb to grow and develop, others will be quite comfortable inside for weeks longer than their siblings. How long your baby remains in utero is not a determining factor of how healthy they will be once they are born. Many premature babies thrive and grow into normal, healthy children and adults, while other full term babies can be born with multiple health complications, therefore dispelling the myth that the longer a baby stays with you, the stronger and healthier they will be outside.
Typically a complete pregnancy is measured from the first day of your last menstrual period. Knowing this, if you break down the exact weeks of a pregnancy, the first 2 weeks are the time where your body is getting ready for an implantation rather than you already being pregnant. Gauging the exact time of fertilization and implantation of the egg is not an exact science, therefore leaving some variances on what some will consider a full term pregnancy. There are predetermined charts and medical information that can help you predict the upcoming birth date of your new addition, but is not entirely 100% accurate. Depending on the type of information you receive or find in places such as books, personal referrals or even the Internet, a normal full term pregnancy can be measured anywhere from 37 to 42 weeks in total.
Once you reach week 37 in your pregnancy, if you were to begin labour your health care practitioner would not try to stop it at all and let you progress naturally until you gave birth. At 37 weeks, your little one’s body is complete and ready to function outside of the womb. The amount of amniotic fluid begins to decrease during this time of pregnancy and your little one may even begin to slow down the growth process, since it has most of the fat stores it needs in order to survive and regulate its own body temperature once born. So rest assured that if your labour was to begin anytime after your 37th week in pregnancy, it is still considered full term and you can look forward to a new little family member quite soon!