Calculating the weeks of pregnancy is essential to accurately identify of the expected date of delivery, and that’s why today we will explain to you exactly how to calculate the weeks of pregnancy from conception with the correspondence of the months without making mistakes.
Very often when you are pregnant you are asked the number of weeks or months of pregnancy by friends, relatives and acquaintances, but unfortunately there are those who still make gross errors because they are not able to calculate them.
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How to calculate the weeks of pregnancy?
To calculate the weeks of pregnancy you need to refer to the first day after the last menstruation, the reason is very simple!
It is not possible to know exactly the moment of conception and therefore when the sperm ovulation occurs, on the other hand every woman knows the date of her last cycle especially if she intends to get pregnant.
This is why counting from the first day after the last menstruation remains to date the most reliable method to start counting the days remaining to your expected date of delivery.
Pregnancy weeks calculation and month correspondence
Here is the counting of weeks to understand how many months you are pregnant:
- 1st month: up to 4 weeks + 3 days
- 2nd month: from 4 weeks + 4 days to 8 weeks + 5 days
- 3rd month: from 8 weeks + 6 days to 13 weeks + 1 day
- 4th month: from 13 weeks + 2 days to 17 weeks + 4 days
- 5th month: from 17 weeks + 5 days to 21 weeks + 6 days
- 6th month: from 22 weeks + 0 days to 26 weeks + 2 days
- 7th month: from 26 weeks + 3 days to 30 weeks + 4 days
- 8th month: from 30 weeks + 5 days to 35 weeks + 0 days
- 9th month: from 35 weeks + 1 day to 40 weeks + 0 days
But why do we need this pregnancy table to understand how long you have been pregnant? The reason is that in reality it is not possible to use months as a measuring stick, this is because they have a variable duration and are not exact like weeks.
For example, if it is certain that a week is made up of 7 days, a month can be made up of 28, 29, 30 or 31 days, this is why the most reliable measuring stick is weeks and days.
In any case, to give others an idea of where you are in your pregnancy and therefore in a colloquial way, it is often preferable to use months, also because those who have never faced a pregnancy would not know what it means, for example, to be in the twenty-second week without first doing a count.
How long does a pregnancy last
A regular pregnancy of which the day of the last menstruation is known and without complications generally lasts 40 weeks and therefore approximately 9 months.
In any case, this duration is very variable, each pregnancy is a world in itself, there are pregnancies that can last even just 30 weeks and so on.
How long can a pregnancy last maximum
It is important to underline that a full-term pregnancy is defined as one in which delivery occurs between 37 and 41 weeks.
If the baby is born in this period of time, it is very likely that he or she will be born without complications, with the right weight and with fully formed organs and body parts.
Premature birth is instead a phenomenon that occurs when the pregnancy lasts less than 37 weeks of gestation, fewer weeks of gestation than normal involve more risks for the fetus to be born with complications, even serious ones.
When is labor induced
Starting from week 42, labor must necessarily be induced by the hospital, this is because exceeding this number of weeks increases the risk of complications during labor for both the mother and the baby.
After labor is induced, labor usually occurs within 24 hours, if the cervix was not yet ready, it can take up to 48 hours.
Therefore, we can consider 42 weeks as the deadline for giving birth.
Why Know Your Pregnancy Date
Calculating your pregnancy weeks, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, becomes essential to knowing your expected date of delivery, but not only that!
In fact, counting your weeks allows you to keep track of your fetus’ health from the beginning to the end of your pregnancy, and among other things, it allows you to know the progress of your fetal development according to the established parameters.
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