Month10
How your baby has grown
Height: 50cm/ Weight: 3,000g
(pict : A fully developed fetus(your baby) is in your abdomen)
Once you hit the 10-month mark in pregnancy, you are ready to safely deliver your baby at any time. Your baby takes full human form and has the facial shape of a newborn baby. Your baby’s body becomes bigger to fill up the uterus and assumes the posture of hunching the back and collecting the arms and legs forward. All lanugos are gone, with only some left remaining in the wrinkled area in the shoulder or the limbs. Your baby is fully able to adjust the body temperature with enough fat layers. In addition, your baby is highly resistant to infection and is ready to come out during this period.
How your baby's body changes
- ① Comfortable bowls and easier time breathing
As your baby goes down into the pelvis, the pressure against your bowels and the thorax lessens. That explains a sense of comfort in the bowels to make your breathing easier and stimulate your appetite. - ② As your due date nears, your vagina softens.
Since the head of your baby is increasingly heading downwards, you feel a stronger urge to urinate as well as a sense of tightness in your abdomen. Your vagina becomes softer and your uterus entrance becomes wet, flexible and elastic in order for your baby to come out easily. - ③ I often feel tightness in the abdomen.
This period is when your baby is ready to come out at any time. As the baby becomes larger, your belly further expands, making the sunken area of the navel almost disappear. As the due date nears, you may sense false labor pain irregularly due to intermittent uterus contractions.
Health Checkpoint
- ① See a doctor once a week.
The last month of pregnancy is considered to be between the 37th and 42nd week. You need to see a doctor or consult with your health care provider weekly to check if your uterus entrance has opened. It is time to prepare yourself for the delivery by checking the health status of yourself, your baby and the due date. - ② When you must go to a hospital immediately
- Premature rupture of membranes when there is no labor pain or show
- Labor pain at a 10-minute interval
- Abnormal bleeding
What You Should Do
- ① Move your body slightly.
While you need to have enough rest and sleep to sustain your physical strength needed for delivery, you need to engage in physical activities in a way not to exhaust yourself. Furthermore, you will find it hard to keep a balance due to the significantly enlarging abdomen. Thus, be careful not to slip and fall in and out of your house. You will never know when the signs of delivery will hit, therefore, try to avoid going out by yourself, keep your body and hair clean and tidy so that you can be ready to go to a hospital whenever necessary. This is when you experience insomnia and headaches, so try to relax your tension by taking a brisk walk, exercising, giving massages on your neck and legs, and taking warm and short showers. - ② In the last full month of pregnancy, the space where your baby can move around in the uterus becomes limited, decreasing the fetus movement in the last few weeks.
When the due date becomes very close, you will go through the following symptoms. You will see blood mixed with blood and experience labor pain on a regular basis. In most cases, the rupture of membranes starts after the uterus entrance is open. Nonetheless, the rupture sometimes occurs even before labor pain starts. So you must go to a hospital and have yourself examined immediately if you can’t decide whether it’s urine or the sign of rupture.