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39 Weeks Pregnant
 The Baby Your baby is now completely ready to be born. He is 19 inches long (49 cm) and just over 7 pounds (3300 grams). He is lying low within your abdomen and pressing heavily on the cervix. Fortunately his bones are very supple so that they can easily adapt during the birth in the narrow birth canal. His head can also easily fit through because the skull bones are not fused and can compress. Moreover, there are openings between the bones. You can feel these openings, the fontanelles, very easily during the first year of your baby's life. You can see his heart beating under the skin. This area is covered with a thick membrane but it is still not bone - be careful of this "soft spot!" Some babies who have been in the birth canal a bit longer are born with some head "molding," when the skull is lumpy or elongated. Molding will always go away by itself. Babies that come into the world by means of a Caesarean birth usually have a nicely rounded head.Your baby is so used to certain sounds that after the birth he can immediately recognize your voices or the barking of the dog. Your baby will also become quiet right away when he is placed on your abdomen after he is born. Your voice and warmth and the beating of your heart make him think of that safe warm uterus where he was all those months.But it might very well be that your baby shows no sign of leaving his safe, trusted place yet. If the placenta is still working properly and there is sufficient progesterone being produced as a result of which the contractions - still - do not get into gear, your baby will happily stay where he is - which is absolutely fine and the best thing for him at this point.
 MotherToday, tomorrow, next week... you never know. Not really. When will he come? It can seem like such a long time when you are in the final stages. You don't want to be impatient because you know very well that there are babies that come only after 42 weeks. Then you still have 3 weeks to go. 25 percent of pregnant women give birth just before or just after the due date. Women who are pregnant with their first child frequently give birth later. After 42 weeks, 6 to 9 percent of pregnant women have not yet given birth. At 39 weeks you don't need to be worried when nothing is happening yet. Just do your daily activities. Read that book that you always wanted to read, rent a few fun movies, and if you have older children, spend as much extra time with them as you can. You really don't have to stay at home all the time. Labor typically takes between two and twenty four hours. Almost everyone has ample warning and time to get to their birthplace. It is best to deal with labor at home, where your normal surroundings, comfortable bed, and familiar shower and tub help you relax and thus your labor move along faster. If you're worried, you can always call your health care provider. If you sound really upset, be prepared for them to tell you to come in to the hospital - and then to be sent home again if you are not really in labor. If you can stay calm, do! Early in your labor, you may not feel the contractions at all. Your mood may change, though - you may be excited, find it very interesting to clean things you wouldn't normally clean, or you may have a lot of diarrhea. One clear sign that labor may have begun is if you see a light staining of red or pink mucous on the toilet paper or in your underwear. Called bloody show, this is a sign that tiny capillaries are breaking in stretching cervix. At some point, you may notice your abdomen is tightening and getting hard. This may feel like a balloon blowing up in your abdomen, like a band stretching around your back, or like your belly is getting hard and moving forward out in front of you! While the uterus is contracting, the sensation gets steadily more intense for about thirty seconds. The sensation will peak and then fade away gradually. If you breathe deeply into your belly and let out the breath slowly, letting your whole body relax, these contractions should be easy to deal with. After all, contractions simply mean that the big bag of muscles, your uterus, is tightening and doing the job of opening, or dilating, the cervix. It doesn't have to hurt! You can time these sensations and see what they are doing. You may see that they are ten to twelve minutes apart, lasting up to sixty seconds. You will probably be able to move and talk through them.As time passes, follow your body's lead. If you are tired, sleep. If you are hungry or thirsty, eat and drink. Go for a walk with your partner or a friend - walking helps to bring the baby into alignment in the pelvis. Stay active! Don't lie in bed and wait for the labor to happen to you - in fact, lying on your back is the most painful place for you to be as your contractions will be working against gravity. Your job during this entire part of the labor is to relax completely with each contraction and let your uterus do all the work.During this time, you have likely gotten much more intense and inwardly focused. It may not feel good to eat or drink or talk anymore. Instead, you may prefer a quiet, dark place. Getting into a warm bathtub or shower may feel wonderful. From this time onward, have someone with you at all times. Your partner can be whispering to you what a wonderful job you are doing and stroking your hair and massaging your neck and back. You are likely to be extremely sensitive to sound, light, and smells - make sure you have breath mints handy for your partner! He should be totally focused on you, not off fooling around with the car or talking to others in the room. Contractions are likely to be much closer together - probably 4-5 minutes apart, lasting 60 seconds or more. If you are in the hospital, the nurse may periodically ask to check your cervix. If you want to, you can let them do it. Remember, though, dilation progresses at its own pace. It can start and stop. The process is entirely natural and the only important thing is, the cervix must be completely drawn up into the body of the uterus before you start to push your baby out. These last minutes or hours of labor are typically the hardest. This is the part we see in the movies, where the mother is screaming "I can't do this anymore" and trying to hit people -- usually because she's forced to lie in her back on the bed! You may find yourself losing confidence, asking for drugs, sweating, having chills, vomiting, or with cold feet and hands. These are all signs of the hormonal change called transition. Your partner can remind you "You are in transition, you will soon be pushing out the baby!" Hearing this said out loud can help restore your confidence. Contractions are likely very close together now - two minutes apart or less. Instead of climbing in intensity and then peaking, they may peak, and then peak again, and then slowly fade away - but not completely! This is the shortest part of any labor; indeed, some mothers never experience transition at all.
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 What kinds of contractions are there?
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Braxton Hicks contractions. You can have these from the twentieth week on. Part of your uterus tightens. This happens most often after orgasm or when you are hungry, thirsty, or very tired. |
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Pre-labor contractions. These usually begin in the days or weeks before the birth. They are more intense than Braxton Hicks contractions and they may soften and thin the cervix, and even start the dilation process, but they are not progressive, that is, they do not get harder and closer together. Pre-labor contractions may occur at regular intervals but they remain the same and last up to 30 seconds. |
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Labor contractions. These ensure that your uterus dilates, i.e. opens up for the baby. Now your birth journey has really begun! Over the hours of your labor, true labor contractions normally increase in strength or intensity, get longer in duration, and closer together in time. A contraction is often compared to a wave: it comes on, swells, reaches a crest and then tapers off. |
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Pushing contractions. These are the contractions that feel like having an enormous bowel movement. They bring your baby down through the pelvis and out the birth canal. |
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The success of your birth depends on the feeling that you have done everything you can to bring your child into the world healthy and safe. Whether you had a lot of pain or a little, how long or briefly it lasted, or if you ended up needing a Caesarean... it doesn't matter. You have done everything with love with loving people around you and your crowning glory lies nicely in your arms. That's what counts. |
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 FatherYou can see the pregnancy as a long journey towards the unknown. A journey that you take together. A long journey with a heavy load at the end. This time the weight is not a problem for you to carry, but it is for your pregnant partner. You're there to ensure that the journey goes off without a hitch. This type of journey gives you the opportunity to meet each other once again. You come upon terrain and territory where you have never been before. You make discoveries that you have never seen. You get to know yourself and you get to know her even better. Especially if during the journey some challenges await you, you'll come out stronger than ever at the end of the pregnancy. And that is also the goal because at the end of that journey the reward awaits: a child from the two of you. The most formidable challenge in your life, a son or daughter who has been entrusted to the two of you waits for your care, love and guidance. That can only go well as long as you remain operating as a team just like you have learned on this journey. |
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