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Learning about the Stages of Pregnancy
from:Congratulations! You’re pregnant! Regardless of who you are or if this is the first pregnancy or not, there are probably a lot of things going through your head right now. “You” may be the expectant mother, the father, or even a close relative or friend, but you somehow feel as if you are connected to the pregnancy and that it will affect your life. You are probably correct, since a baby does tend to change the lives of the adults around it.
So, what do you do now? That obviously depends on who you are. That also will depend on the stages of pregnancy status of the expectant mother. The expectant mother generally will visit her primary care physician who may, or may not, refer her to a specialist. There are a variety of tests she will take, and things she will do and her physician should keep her informed of the stages of pregnancy and what to expect. What happens, however, if you are involved in the pregnancy but aren’t the mother?
If you have been pregnant, or known other pregnant women, you probably have an idea what will happen during the next several months. If you haven’t really paid attention in the past, you probably want a short summary of what to expect during the stages of pregnancy.
In the very first few weeks, there may be no obvious changes in the mother. She might not even know she is/was pregnant. Early in the pregnancy, many women suffer from “morning sickness”, which can really happen during any time of the day. This morning sickness may have bothered her enough that she went to the doctor and then discovered she was pregnant. This may be surprising information. The mother may react in many different ways. She may have many different moods during the next few weeks, and that will most likely be connected with the changes in her body.
During the first few weeks, the mother’s hormones are adjusting to the fetus within her. Her emotions will react to those changes. Her moods will shift, and she may not even be aware that they have. After about the first two months or so, her moods will stabilize. She will start gaining weight, and start thinking about what to do when the baby comes. She may start cleaning house and throwing away things she has kept for years. Again, this is normal. She is planning for the arrival of the newborn baby.
For the middle stages of pregnancy, she will talk about the pregnancy and do the things she might have done before she learned she was pregnant. In the last two months or so, she will get increasingly tired and eager for the pregnancy to end. The fetus is getting larger and shifting its position. Since the fetus will press against her bladder, the mother will need to go to the bathroom frequently. Her weight is in her front, so her back will hurt. She may again engage in a burst of housecleaning, in preparation for the baby.
In the last stages of pregnancy, the expectant mother may become more focused on her discomfort since she has been living with it constantly. She will be eager for the delivery. She may not pay as much attention to others as she once did, but that is normal and to be expected. The baby will be in her charge for several years and she is beginning to make plans for that new life.
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