Pregnancy - Progression - Duration

Duration

Healthcare professionals name three different dates as the start of pregnancy:

• the first day of the woman's last normal menstrual period, and the resulting fetal age is called the gestational age
• the date of conception (about two weeks before her next expected menstrual period), with the age called fertilization age
• the date of implantation (about one week after conception).

Since these are spread over a significant period of time, the duration of pregnancy necessarily depends on the date selected as the starting point chosen.

As measured on a reference group of women with a menstrual cycle of exactly 28-days prior to pregnancy, and who had spontaneous onset of labor, the mean pregnancy length has been estimated to be 283.4 days of gestational age as timed from the first day of the last menstrual period as recalled by the mother, and 280.6 days when the gestational age was retrospectively estimated by obstetric ultrasound measurement of the fetal biparietal diameter (BPD) in the second trimester. Other algorithms take into account a variety of other variables, such as whether this is the first or subsequent child (i.e., pregnant woman is a primipara or a multipara, respectively), the mother's race, parental age, length of menstrual cycle, and menstrual regularity), but these are rarely used by healthcare professionals. In order to have a standard reference point, the normal pregnancy duration is generally assumed to be 280 days (or 40 weeks) of gestational age.

There is a standard deviation of 8–9 days surrounding due dates calculated with even the most accurate methods. This means that fewer than 5 percent of births occur on the day of being 40 weeks of gestational age; 50 percent of births are within a week of this duration, and about 80 percent are within 2 weeks. It is much more useful and accurate, therefore, to consider a range of due dates, rather than one specific day, with some online due date calculators providing this information.

The most common system used among healthcare professionals is Naegele's rule, which was developed in the early 19th century. This calculates the expected due date from the first day of the last normal menstrual period (LMP or LNMP) regardless of factors known to make this inaccurate, such as a shorter or longer menstrual cycle length. Pregnancy most commonly lasts for 40 weeks according to this LNMP-based method, assuming that the woman has a predictable menstrual cycle length of close to 28 days and conceives on the 14th day of that cycle

Accurate dating of pregnancy is important, because it is used in calculating the results of various prenatal tests, (for example, in the triple test). A decision may be made to induce labour if a fetus is perceived to be overdue. Furthermore, if LMP and ultrasound dating predict different respective due dates, with the latter being later, this might signify slowed fetal growth and therefore require closer review.

The age of fetal viability has been receding because of continued medical progress. Whereas it used to be 28 weeks, it has been brought back to as early as 23, or even 22 weeks in some countries.