Contents
Early pregnancy: how to determine exactly? Video
When the first signs of pregnancy appear, expectant mothers want to know when the baby was conceived and how much time is left until the due date. To do this, you just need to establish the gestational age.
Calculate the gestational age at the initial stage
Why does a girl need to know the gestational age at an early stage
Determining the exact duration of pregnancy in the early stages is important for the correct management of it in antenatal clinics, the timely appointment of medical research, determining the date of maternity leave and the time of delivery, and providing timely assistance to the future woman in labor.
Knowing already at an early stage when conception occurred, you can safely prepare for the birth of a baby, set yourself up for childbirth, buy a dowry for an unborn baby.
Information about the development of the fetus gives the mother psychological comfort, helps to maintain a positive attitude throughout the pregnancy.
Ways to determine the duration of pregnancy in the early stages
To understand that pregnancy has come, various signs help the mother:
- delay in the next menstruation
- lethargic state
- changes in appetite (for example, it may pull on salty or sweet foods)
- breast tenderness
The desire to have sex may disappear, a little later the belly begins to grow.
There are various ways to calculate the duration of pregnancy in the early stages of its development.
In obstetric practice, the gestation period is calculated in weeks, the time for carrying a baby is on average 40 weeks
The main method for calculating the time of residence in the mother’s tummy of the baby is based on establishing the date of the last menstruation. The number of weeks and days elapsed from the starting point is added to this day.
Often, a woman does not remember the day when her last period started. Also, the gestational age can be set incorrectly if the cycle is not regular or the expectant mother has blood due to problems during pregnancy. Sometimes for menstruation, some pregnant women take implantation bleeding that occurs on the 6-10th day of conception.
In such situations, the gestational age can be fairly accurately established according to ultrasound data at 10-14 weeks
The doctor can check the size of the fetus and compare them with the average and draw appropriate conclusions.
You can find out the gestational age at an early stage by the date of conception of the baby (or the date of ovulation). It will be less by two weeks than the period calculated from the time of the beginning of the last period.
An experienced doctor, when a woman visits him already at 4-5 weeks of obstetric time, can determine the time of pregnancy by the size of the uterus. 2 weeks after fertilization, the uterus acquires a cyanotic hue and grows to the size of a chicken egg, and a month later – to the volume of a goose testicle. However, the gestational age calculated in this way will be quite approximate.
At the later stages of fetal development in the womb, the period can be set (confirmed) by the date of the onset of the baby’s movements, the height of the fundus of the uterus, and the volume of the abdomen.
You can more accurately determine the gestational age by comparing the calculation results in various ways.