Pregnancy is, if nothing else a biological condition. There is a lot that
the average person may not know about pregnancy. Most people realize that
pregnancy when a woman is carrying a developing child in her uterus. Most
people think of pregnancy as lasting 9 months and ending abruptly with labor
and the birth of the unborn child. Most people are also aware that a woman
becomes pregnant by having her egg fertilized by sperm. This is most often
achieved through the act of sexual intercourse, although there are other
medical interventions that have been developed that allow a woman to become
pregnant without ever having sex.
Method of conception aside, there is much
to know about the biology of pregnancy. Pregnancy is calculated and measured
through the number of weeks that it lasts. Contrary to the popular belief
that pregnancy lasts 9 months, the whole duration of a pregnancy is 40
weeks, which is closer to 10 months. Those 40 weeks are split into 3
trimesters, each of which enjoys certain characteristics. The first
trimester is weeks 1 through 12. The first week of a pregnancy starts the
day that a woman gets her menstrual cycle and it can be anywhere from 2 to 3
weeks more before conception actually takes place. By the time that the
average pregnancy is detected, most women are somewhere between 5 and 7
weeks along!
In the first trimester, women will often notice a marked
decrease in their energy level. Feeling dog tired and either hungry or
nauseated all of the time is especially common. In the first trimester,
women experience strong hormonal changes that prepare the body to grow and
sustain a life. These changes cause the excessive tiredness and nausea as
well as mood swings that are the hallmarks of early pregnancy. Typically
these start to ease up in the second trimester of pregnancy, as the rapid
hormonal changes slow down. For this reason, the second trimester is often
referred to as the honeymoon period of pregnancy.
The third trimester of a
pregnancy is weeks 28-40. During this stage of pregnancy, women typically
begin to feel the urge to “nest” or to get things ready for the impending
birth. For many, the tiredness may come back in spades, though that is more
due to the added stress and work that is being placed on her body by the
full fledged human being that she is carrying.
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