There is no way of being absolutely sure when a pregnancy has lasted precisely days, because there is no way of being absolutely sure of the moment of conception.
This is why doctors and midwives are so careful to explain when working out the expected date of delivery (EDD) that two weeks on either side can be normal .
However, when a pregnancy has gone on for more than 14 days after the EDD, and the baby has been of the expected size during the months of pregnancy, the doctors consider the possibility of post maturity.
If however the baby’s size has always been ‘small for dates’ then he is probably not post mature; there has just been confusion about the date of the mother’s last menstrual period.
If the baby remains in the uterus too long instead of continuing to grow he actually loses weight.This could be because the placenta, now it is ageing, can no longer provide adequate nourishment, and the baby begins to live on the fat he has stored under his skin.
By about the forty-second or forty-third week of pregnancy he may be quite scraggy. Babies born at this stage are thin, look wrinkled and have long fingernails and peeling skin. All these signs indicate post maturity.
These signs don’t last long; the baby rapidly gets back the extra fat he needs as he feeds eagerly in the first days of his life, and the excess skin peels away, until by the time he leaves hospital with his mother he looks like any other baby. If a doctor suspects a pregnancy has lasted too long, he will probably arrange an induction .
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