Getting ready to be a mother : $b a little book of information and advice for the young woman who is looking forward to motherhoodVan Blarcom, Carolyn Conant
Science
Getting ready to be a mother : $b a little book of information and advice for the young woman who is looking forward to motherhood
Van Blarcom, Carolyn Conant
Infants -- Care; Obstetrics; Pregnancy
=At the end of the third month, or twelfth week=, his entire body shows
marked development and is about 3½ inches long. His fingers and toes are
separated and bear soft nails; the teeth are forming, the eyes have lids
and the umbilical cord has taken definite form.
=At the end of the fourth month, or sixteenth week=, in addition to the
development of all parts a fine, soft hair appears over the body; there
is a black, tarry substance, called _meconium_, in the baby’s intestines
and he measures about 6 inches in length and weighs perhaps ¼ pound.
[Illustration:
FIG. 8.—Appearance of the baby at different stages, early in his
development.
]
=By the end of the fifth month, or twentieth week=, the baby has grown
and developed markedly. He is now covered with skin on which are
occasional patches of a greasy, cheesy substance called _vernix
caseosa_, and though there is some fat beneath the skin his face looks
old and wrinkled. A certain amount of hair has appeared upon the head
and the eyelids are opening. It is usually during the fifth month that
the expectant mother first feels her baby move, this sensation being
commonly referred to as “quickening.” He is now about 10 inches long and
weighs about 9 ounces.
=By the end of the sixth month or twenty-fourth week=, the baby is about
12 inches long and weighs possibly 1½ pounds. He is thin and wrinkled in
appearance and if born at this time will attempt to breathe and move his
limbs but will perish in a short time.
=By the end of the seventh month, or twenty-eighth week=, he still looks
thin and scrawny; his skin is reddish and is well covered with the
cheesy vernix caseosa. If born at this stage, the baby will move quite
vigorously and cry feebly, but he is not likely to live for any length
of time. He is now about 14 inches long and weighs about 2¾ pounds.
=By the end of the eighth month, or thirty-second week=, the baby has
grown to about 17 inches in length and 4 pounds in weight, but continues
to look thin and old and wrinkled. His nails do not extend beyond the
ends of his fingers but are firmer in texture; the soft, downy hair
begins to disappear from his face but the hair on his head is more
abundant. If born at this stage, the baby will have a fair chance to
live, provided he is given painstaking care. This is true in spite of
the old belief, still widely current, that a seven months’ baby is more
likely to live than one born at eight months (meaning calendar months).
The fact is that after the twenty-eighth week the probability of the
baby’s living increases greatly with each added week of life within the
uterus. His growth during the latter part of pregnancy is rapid, for he
gains nine tenths of his weight after the fifth month and one half of
his weight during the last eight weeks of uterine life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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