THE ESSENTIAL
- In France, a delivery date is systematically scheduled 9 months after the presumed date of the start of pregnancy, i.e. 41 weeks of amenorrhea.
- In the 9th month of pregnancy, the baby weighs around 3 kg and can measure more than 50 centimeters.
- Only 5% of babies are born on the day announced by doctors.
She holds the record for the longest pregnancy in the world. Jacqueline “Jackie” Haddock, 23, gave birth to her daughter after 13 months and a week. At the time, more precisely in 1990, the young woman, originally from Wolverhampton in England, had presented herself to the hospital in London, because she was convinced that she had reached her term. After examinations, the doctors considered that it was still too early to give birth.
Low weight in babies born after 13 months of pregnancy
After a few more weeks of waiting, she found that she was exhausted and nothing was happening. After 398 days, the Briton gave birth to a baby girl, named Sarah Jane. The latter weighed 1,360 kg at birth. “I don’t think we’re going to have another child after this because I suffered,” she confided.
This is not the first time that a patient has remained pregnant for such a long time. In 1971, Christine Houghton, a 28-year-old Englishwoman, gave birth after 390 days of pregnancy. At birth, her daughter weighed 1 kg.
How long does a pregnancy last?
“The duration of gestation is not fixed, it varies between 280 and 290 days, i.e. between 40 and 41.3 weeks of amenorrhea with an average duration of 284 days (40.4 weeks of amenorrhea)”, indicates theHealth Insurance. As a reminder, a child born before the 37th week of pregnancy is considered premature. From the 37th week, we speak of “early term”. A child born at week 37 or 38 may have more difficulty feeding or breathing and have a weaker immune system.
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