Your infant is now considered to be fullterm. By now your babe volition exist curled into the "fetal" position, filling the whole of your uterus. His range of movements will exist restricted to a kicking and a bit of stretching and peradventure attempts at rotating. Your baby volition continue to lay down fat deposits under his skin and will be practicing all the movements you'll run into after he is born, e.g. breathing, suckling, swallowing, blinking, grasping and clasping her hands, head turning, kicking and stretching, possibly even sucking his fist or pollex. You may notice a slight reduction in the number of movements yous experience – your baby is likely to accept quite distinct periods of activity and longer periods of sleep. (If you do non feel your baby moving regularly and y'all are concerned, you can beverage a glass of iced h2o and come across if this stimulates movements, if not, you should arrange an engagement for your LMC midwife or doc to listen to your babe'southward heartbeat a.s.a.p. ) Your baby volition now probably weigh 3- 4kg and mensurate approximately 51cm tall.


Your torso: Past at present, lots of women are feeling completely over beingness pregnant and impatient to run across their babies. Remind yourself and others, that the due date y'all've been given is just an average and it is completely normal for a babe to arrive afterward the estimated due date as long every bit mother and baby are well.

Information technology is usual for you to see your LMC midwife or physician for a check-up each week during this time.

Postdates or overdue?: The normal length of pregnancy is between 37 and 42+weeks. Your Expected Due Date (EDD) is 40weeks right in the eye of this normal range. Despite commonly used terminology, your babe is non overdue only because he has not been born on his EDD. In most cases pregnancies that go on past the EDD represent a completely normal variation of the average. Although it is difficult not to be disappointed about your babe's "no show" and completely "fed up" with being meaning, it can assistance you (and your relations and friends), to be aware that 60% of babies are born subsequently their EDDs.

The best time for your baby to be born is when he is fullterm and this is not necessarily on the EDD yous accept been given. Some babies practice remain in utero (in the womb) by the all-time fourth dimension for them to be born. Your baby's placenta has a limited life bridge and this is different for every female parent and infant. If your pregnancy continues past your placenta's "use past" date, information technology will no longer efficiently transfer oxygen and nutrients to your baby and your baby will exhibit symptoms of postmaturity e.g. slow growth, reduced movements, reduced amniotic fluid volume etc. This can happen earlier or after the EDD and this is 1 of the reasons why your visits to your LMC get more than frequent as you approach your EDD. If your pregnancy lasts more than one week past your estimated due date (or if your LMC midwife or doctor is concerned that your placenta might not be operation efficiently at whatsoever phase of pregnancy), s/he will probably recommend that yous have a test called a Fetal Biophysical Profile. This test uses ultrasonic technologies to assess fetal movement, tone, reactivity, animate movements and amniotic fluid book and gives your baby a score out of 10. If your babe gets a score of 8 or more, it indicates that your placenta is still providing adequate nourishment for your baby, i.due east. if you have passed your EDD your baby is probably postdates rather than postmature and, in the absence of whatsoever other problems, you lot can safely and commonly remain significant till your labour starts spontaneously.

Stop Work: If y'all are in paid employment yous should have started your motherhood exit by week 37. Fifty-fifty if you lot accept a really cruisey chore/boss and can come in late, leave early etc, you should reduce your working week downwards to around iii role-fourth dimension days around now. You need plenty of time to prepare physically, mentally and emotionally for the huge transition that is ahead. Accept time to enjoy these final days/weeks of pregnancy and if it is your first baby, to enjoy doing whatever you lot feel like. If you already have a kid or children you will take less cocky time and probably less fourth dimension to rest – endeavor to organize regular childcare and/or playdates for your other kid(ren) so that you can focus on yourself and your nigh newborn baby for a few hours and get a daytime nap, or at least some uninterrupted relaxing fourth dimension.

Pack your bag: If you lot are planning to give nascence in a maternity unit of measurement or hospital, around now y'all tin celebrate past packing the non-perishable items you lot want to have on paw for your labour and will need during the start 12+hours after your baby is built-in. Apply the list below as a guideline.

For Labour

Clothing – yous can wear your own clothes during labour or a infirmary gown. If you would prefer to wear your ain clothes pack a couple of comfortable tops or T.shirts. You may also want to pack a bikini elevation and/or a couple of crop tops to wearable in the puddle if you don't fancy being totally naked.

  • Socks
  • Hairbands/clips
  • Massage oil or massage wax
  • Extra pillows in coloured pillowcases then you remember to take them home
  • Hotpacks (Wheat/rice pack or gel pad) and cold packs (a bottle of frozen water wrapped in flannel makes a passable cold pack)
  • Drinks including bottled water
  • Lip Lotion or moisturizer
  • Camera – fully charged
  • Music – CD thespian or Ipod and dock etc

After Labour

  • Lather, shampoo & conditioner, toothbrush and toothpaste
  • Sleepwear
  • Motherhood/nursing bra
  • Extra knickers
  • Dressing gown or robe or coat
  • Shawl or cardigan
  • Slippers and shoes
  • Babe clothes – most hospitals provide nappies and possibly some kind of shirt for the duration of your post nativity stay but at the very least, you volition need a full fix of apparel for your baby for coming dwelling. i.eastward.
  • Vest or singlet
  • Grosuit/all-in-one
  • Socks or booties
  • Cardigan or jacket
  • Hat that covers your infant's ears
  • Carpeting or blanket to put over your infant in her carseat
  • Baby carseat

Signs of Labour: A number of things can happen that will indicate that you will soon be in labour, merely you are not in labour until you lot are having regular contractions.

Contractions: Y'all know you are having a labour contraction when your uterus (and abdomen) go hard (like a tightly pumped upwardly ball) and yous feel some sort of depression abdominal awareness commonly at the level of your pubic bone in the forepart and occasionally in your lower back instead or also. Both of these things (uterine tightenings and pelvic twinges/pains) have to exist happening at the same time for y'all to be having a labour contraction. These sensations tin be very mild to start with – a twinge or feeling of pressure level, or period-similar hurting – but they volition abound to go a pulling, stretching or tightening sensation that gets stronger as time goes by. Contractions are intermittent not continuous i.e. they come up and go. As your contractions go more established you will probably find that they have a moving ridge-similar pattern i.east. they start fairly mildly build to a superlative of intensity then slowly fade away giving you a period of minutes when your body feels as relaxed as usual.

Prelabour contractions can feel the same but they are more than random in terms of their intensity and frequency and disappear earlier establishing into a pattern of being longer and stronger and closer together . Prelabour contractions often come and go depending on what you're doing east.g. if you might exist up and moving and notice that you are having contractions then yous prevarication downwardly and they disappear or vice versa. Or, you lot are having contractions so you go into a warm bath and they disappear. Or, you lot notice them subsequently in the twenty-four hour period when you are tired merely if you have a sleep they disappear etc etc.

Active labour contractions become longer, stronger and closer together over a period of fourth dimension. Active labour contractions require all your attention – they will stop you lot mid-judgement or mid stride. Y'all volition need to focus to keep your breathing regular and you will probably exist needing to utilise some labour coping techniques to help you to stay relaxed and permit these contractions to do their piece of work. Yous are not considered to be in active labour until your contractions concluding for at least one infinitesimal and are 5 minutes or less autonomously and have been at this frequency for at least one 60 minutes. This is chosen the 1 – 5 – 1 dominion. When your contractions are coming at this level of frequency your LMC midwife or md volition usually advise you to go the hospital or will come to your home if you lot are planning a homebirth.

Waters breaking: For about x% of women the first sign of labour is sudden loss of fluid from the vagina – this usually means that the amniotic sac has torn and amniotic fluid is draining out. Note the time, and the amount and colour of the amniotic fluid that is leaking out. Wear a sanitary pad and keep any sanitary pads for your LMC to run across. If the fluid loss is clear, contact your LMC during regular working hours. If the fluid loss is dirty-looking, dark-green or chocolate-brown, contact your LMC immediately. The time betwixt waters breaking and the onset of contractions is enormously variable. Some women'south waters will interruption and within 5 minutes they will have had their first labour wrinkle, while other women volition look hours before they have their beginning contraction.

Warning Signs: You should telephone call your LMC midwife or doctor immediately

if you experience whatever of the following:

  • Any vaginal bleeding (not the "prove" which is often blood stained fungus). Wear a germ-free pad (go along any germ-free pads for your LMC to encounter)
  • Sharp stomach pain or severe cramping
  • Persistent or astringent headache.
  • Dizziness or visual disturbances (fuzzy vision, seeing spots or flashes)
  • Persistent airsickness (cannot go on h2o down)
  • Pain or called-for sensation while urinating or inability to urinate.

Eat well: Your uterus is a muscle that will function more efficiently if it is well nourished and well hydrated. Labour (first labour especially) is a bit like a marathon, y'all need to exist physically and mentally well-prepared and you demand to have a good amount of energy on board so that you last the distance. Consume small meals approximately every four or five hours so that your free energy levels are high but you lot are non "weighed downwards with nutrient or using excessive amounts of energy to digest big/heavy meals. You also demand to drink regularly. Endeavor to retrieve to drink at least one cup of fluid every two hours betwixt meals. Your labour will establish (and progress) more than efficiently if your muscles are well-hydrated.

Practice: Continue with regular gentle exercise. This will help you to maintain strength and stamina and reduce the intensity of the common discomforts of late pregnancy. Practice some stretching exercises each day at domicile besides every bit continuing to nourish a pregnancy do class if you're still able. Get for short, leisurely walks once or twice each day if your pelvis allows. Swim or water walk regularly, especially if you are unable to do whatever other form of do.

Rest: Your night-fourth dimension sleep is likely to exist quite interrupted by now so you need to brand sure that you lot have a nap or at least a substantial residuum at some point each day. Your labour could start at whatever time, 24-hour interval or night. You volition be better able to cope if yous are every bit well rested equally possible.

Relax: Labour is a serial of big muscle stretches. During labour the neck (neck) of your uterus, then your pelvic muscles and vagina stretch open to let your baby out. Your muscles will not stretch if y'all are not able to relax. Practising relaxation during your pregnancy will help "train" your subconscious heed to instigate a relaxation response to whatsoever stimuli (a word or phrase, an idea, a visualization, a slice of music, a certain type of impact) you have proficient relaxing to. You lot demand to be able relax actively (e.grand. propped up in a labour enhancing position, possibly rocking or some other repetitive movement), or passively sitting or lying supported in some labour enhancing position and doing nothing except animate and consciously releasing tension from all your muscles and so that you feel as soft and flopsy as a rag doll. All relaxation requires even breathing and then you need to continue to practise breathing gently and evenly, focusing on lengthening your exhalations. Relaxing to the same music each day volition have the added benefit that this music is heard by your babe and the hormones and he will become accustomed to the hormonal state that you induce when you relax. Subsequently he is born it is likely that this same music will help your baby to relax.

Baby movements: Your baby is now very tightly packed in your body and has less and less space for move, then yous may find a change in both the quality and frequency of her movements. You could make a fetal kick /movement chart then that you become consciously aware of your baby's active times. You lot can download a fetal kick nautical chart at www.babypartner.com/tools/charts/pregnancy/fetal-kicking-chart.pdf Although you lot may feel less frequent movements at present that your baby has entered your pelvis you lot should be feeling some vigorous kicks and movements each day (your placenta is attached to the forepart of your uterus). If y'all are concerned that yous haven't felt any strong movements for 12 – 24 hours, potable a glass of iced water. The sensation of cold volition normally get your baby moving. You tin can as well try lying quietly on your left side for 1 60 minutes so rolling over onto your correct side, if you all the same don't feel whatever movements. If neither of these tests consequence in obvious baby movements, you should contact your LMC midwife or physician.

Breastfeeding: If this is your offset infant and you have attended a nascence grooming course, you lot should accept got some basic information to aid you establish successful breastfeeding. Still, since breastfeeding volition be the equivalent of a full-time job it can be a expert idea to get as much information as possible and have a refresher at present that your birth is imminent. Attention a La Leche League "meeting" will give you lot a chance to observe and chat with breastfeeding mothers. Bank check out your local group for data and back up with breastfeeding earlier and later on your babe is born on www.lalecheleague.org.nz Many hospitals and maternity units too offer a i-off breastfeeding class for women booked to requite nascence in their facilities – ask your LMC for data about these sessions or contact your local maternity unit for times and bookings.

Baby clothes and bedding: All the wearing apparel and bedding yous take bought or gathered for your babe needs to exist washed earlier your baby is born. Choose natural fibre clothes and bedding east.g. cotton fiber, wool (including merino), linen, bamboo etc. Your baby'south pare is her biggest organ so it needs to be wrapped in breathable fabrics. Also your babe's power to regulate her own temperature is very immature, natural fibre clothes and bedding will aid ensure that she stays comfortably warm and that moisture is wicked away from her pare and evaporates instead of staying on her skin and making her common cold. Click here to check out the natural fibre habiliment and bedding available from MAMA. Wash your baby's wearing apparel and bedding in a mild, biodegradable laundry pulverization/detergent and rinse well. Your infant's clothes and bedding should exist well enough rinsed that they non scent of the laundry powder you have used. Accept advantage of whatever fine days to line dry your baby's washing, the ultraviolet rays of the lord's day are a natural germicide.

Making Love: Call back it was loving that got your baby in so loving volition help become your baby too. The hormones released during lovemaking help soften your cervix getting it set up to stretch open during labour and the hormones that cause orgasm as well crusade uterine contractions. (Nipple stimulation too encourages your body to release the hormone oxytocin that causes your uterus to contract.) If y'all're not feeling like full-on, orgasmic lovemaking, just hanging out with your partner, kissing, cuddling, having massages, enjoying your baby'southward movements, speculating about what your babe is going to be like, what its going to be like to have this new and absorbing focus in your relationship, sharing your excitement about becoming parents or enlarging your family. Taking the time to be together feeling loved and loving and bonded with your partner and your babe will aid instigate the onset of your labour.

  • Week 1
  • Weeks two – 3
  • Week 4
  • Weeks 5-8
  • Weeks ix – 10
  • Weeks xi – 13
  • Weeks 14 – 17
  • Weeks 18 – 20
  • Weeks 21 – 24
  • Weeks 24 – 28
  • Weeks 28 – 32
  • Weeks 32 – 36
  • Weeks 37 – 40