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Calculating Pregnancy Due Date
By
Ashley | November 24, 2009
As soon as a woman’s pregnancy is confirmed, the couple becomes eager to know when the baby is due. Knowing the due date of the baby is extremely important for the parents. Knowing the final date can help them make preparations for the baby. A lot of parents like to make nurseries in their home for the baby, there’s furniture to be bought, rooms to be arranged, supplies to be kept in stock and even afterwards, there are many smaller odd jobs that need to be taken care of.
On an average, the pregnancy term is a forty week period and therefore the dates are counted from the last menstrual period. When the pregnancy is normal, adding nine months and seven days to the starting date of the last menstrual periods can give you your exact due date. This date is calculated, assuming that the birth will be normal.
Pregnancy Due Date is simple to calculate and ideally there shouldn’t be any problems. Here’s an example. For instance, if you had your last normal period on the twenty sixth of September, add seven days to the date and you get third of October. Now, add nine months to this and you get the due date as the third of August of the next year.
The due date is only an indication of when you should expect your baby. It is not necessary that your baby will be born on the exact date that has been predicted by the doctor. Almost eighty percent of women give birth around their due date. The birth may be ten days before the due date or ten days after it. A delivery which occurs between the thirty eighth week and the forty second week is known as a full term pregnancy.
There are also pre-term pregnancies in which the woman may give birth much before her due date. Almost ten percent of pregnant women give birth to their children early. A delivery that is between the twentieth week and the thirty sixth week is usually a premature or a pre-term pregnancy.
A pre-term delivery occurs because the mother goes into labor too early due to some reasons. The exact reasons behind this are not known; however, usually a preterm labor is associated with a pregnancy which results in multiple births, abruption of the placenta, use of tobacco by the mother, a uterus which is abnormal in shape, or some other untreated medical condition of the mother.
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