Gestational gestational age is a term that defines the length of time a baby spends in the womb from conception to delivery. Usually, doctors start the report from the last day of the last period. This is due to the fact that the very moment of fertilization is very difficult to know.
How to calculate the due date?
The gestational age of the onset of pregnancy is the very moment when a new life is born in a woman. But, unfortunately, not all couples know exactly when the egg was fertilized and when the egg was implanted with the fetus. After intercourse, it takes several days for the sperm to reach its goal and the birth of a new life to occur, and for the egg to travel to the uterus and gain a foothold in it. That is why doctors consider the gestational age unreliable.
Gynecologists and obstetricians have their own method for determining the age of the baby in the womb, it is called the "obstetric method". They believe that it is more accurate than the gestational age, but ahead of it by about a couple of weeks, because it is considered from the last day of the last period, and ovulation occurs only in the middle of the cycle. Without ovulation, fertilization is impossible.
Doctors and obstetricians most often determine the gestational age only once, after an ultrasound scan they recalculate it using a special formula:
W=? 13, 9646KTR - 4, 1993 + 2, 155
Here, W is a gestational indicator, and KTP is the parieto-coccygeal size. This calculation is carried out during the first 90 days of pregnancy.
From the fourth month, doctors prefer to use a different value. They replace KTP with BDP (biparietal fetal head size).
Determination of gestational age occurs according to the formula:
W=52, 687-0, 6?7810, 011-76, 7756 x H
In this case, B is BDP (calculated in millimeters).
Why is timing important?
Gynecologists seek to know the gestational age of the fetus in order to pre-calculate the estimated date of delivery (ED). This is necessary in order to exclude prematurity and postmaturity of the baby. After all, both of these conditions are dangerous for the child, because they can have serious consequences for the he alth of the mother and baby. Premature births occur before the 38th week of pregnancy and they threaten the underdevelopment of the fetus at birth, the baby may not have lungs and so on. When crossing, childbirth can begin after 41-42 weeks of pregnancy and threaten to infect the child due to contamination of the amniotic fluid, the child, due to its large size, can hardly move through the birth canal, thereby injuring the mother or herself.
Completion of gestational age
According to people who are far from even the basics of gynecology, the gestational age and the estimated date of birth are one and the same. But this is absolutely not true. A woman won't go into labor just because she's having a DD today. It depends on the baby, on his readiness to be born and on how ready the body of the pregnant woman is. Doctors consider the end of the gestational period to be the one that occurs after the end of childbirth.
In the photo you can see how the body of a pregnant woman changes with increasing gestational age.
What other methods are used to set a deadline?
Sometimes it happens that the gestational and obstetric period cannot be calculated. This happens when pregnancy occurs after childbirth or while breastfeeding, the woman does not have a regular menstrual cycle, or there are hormonal disruptions. During these periods, the representatives of the weaker sex do not have periods, but there is an opportunity to become pregnant. In such situations, gynecologists prescribe the passage of ultrasound (ultrasound diagnostics). Thanks to this device, you can accurately determine the presence of pregnancy and the exact duration of pregnancy. The most suitable period for the examination is considered to be 7-17 weeks. The determination of the gestational age is made according to the size of the child.
No matter how accurate all three ways of determining, the estimated date of delivery may differ.
Many girls who are pregnant for the first time wonder: what does gestational age mean? And that means age.fetus. Doctors use their methods to determine it in order to pre-calculate the estimated date of birth. This is necessary in order to exclude preterm labor and relocation.
