Friday, March 11, 2011

37 Weeks - Baby's Development

I read this today and thought about how at 38 weeks the baby is considered full term, but at 37 weeks he/she is still doing all of this:

Your baby has likely hit the six-pound mark by now, and her length is approximately twenty-one inches. The weight on your abdomen probably feels like twice that. Your baby is practicing her breathing, but she has increasingly less space to practice stretching and kicking. Your baby' intestines are also building up meconium, a greenish-black substance made of baby by-products such as dead cells, shed lanugo, and amniotic fluid. It'll become your little darling's first bowel movement, hopefully after she is out of the womb. Her body fat has increased to about eight percent. By birth, it'll be about fifteen percent. If your baby is a boy, his testes will have descended into his scrotum. While your baby could be born at any time, the longer she stays in, the more time she has to develop the connections in her brain in the pleasant peace and quiet of your womb. At this point, she can do all the things a newborn can, with the exception of breathing air and pooping in a diaper. Just as you're feeling stretched, your baby is being squeezed on all sides. Some of your antibodies are crossing the placenta, giving your baby's immune system some support for her first days in the world. If you breastfeed, you'll later be giving her immunities in your milk.

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