Weight: 4lbs Length: 17 inches
In the latest womb reports, your amazing baby has now developed sensitivity to temperature!
Which means you’re likely to get a swift kick if you put a hot pad or bag of ice on your ginormous belly.
For the Elton John lovers out there - baby’s got blue eyes.
Actually, even if you're too young to know who Elton is, all babies have blue eyes at this point.
This could easily change after birth (or even between now and labor), but for the time being, blue it is.
Thanks to their recently matured lungs and a strengthening immune system, over 90% of babies born in their 32nd week survive!
So - go ahead and throw a mini-party right now because it’s pretty much a done deal - you've got a human-bean that's going to make it!
That's not to say you actually want your wee womb-squatter to pack their bags and move out now, because they'd still end up in the ICU for a good while, rather than in your arms at home.
Babies are best when fully baked!
And how's mom doing?
Choo choo... back on the same lame symptom train and the ride is ... well, let's just say you can count getting up to pee every 10 minutes as part of your daily exercise regime. Let's be clear on one thing: your labor is your labor - it's not the doctor's, it's not your mother's, it's not even your partner's
Also, when you're getting up for your millionth potty-break, watch out for lightheadedness and get up nice-n-slow during these last weeks as your blood tends to pool in the lower limbs, resulting in low cranial blood pressure.
If you haven't yet started facing the elephant in the room, it's time to bite the bullet and talk about labor and birth.
Yes, labor isn't easy (hence the name "labor") and although contractions can be intensely painful if they're not properly managed, there are several easy and safe methods for making your contractions much more tolerable pain-wise.
To start: let's be clear on one thing: your labor is your labor - it's not the doctor's, it's not your mother's, it's not even your partner's, so it's time to start taking steps to prepare yourself for one of the most intense experiences of your life.
Labor and Birth 101
PHASE 1: EARLY LABOR:
Early labor is signaled by an increase in the rate and intensity of contractions (between 30 - 60 seconds; starting 20 minutes apart till they're 5 minutes apart), bloody show (loss of your cervical plug), water breaking (or not - it only happens to 20% of women at the onset of labor), and diarrhea is also common.
Please note that labor is not a linear process for every woman. Sometimes it starts and then recedes - the more active you are, the more you're going to encourage it to progress. The more you're relaxing horizontally and taking baths, the more slowly labor will progress.
The contractions you'll feel are powerful muscular waves of movement moving both down and across your uterine muscles, that first thin your cervix, and then begin to slowly press your baby out of the uterus and down towards the birth canal.
PHASE 2: ACTIVE LABOR:
Active labor occurs when your contractions become more intense in duration and rate. Active labor contractions last for 45 to 60 seconds, and are 3 to 5 minutes apart.
PHASE 3: TRANSITION:
Transition is what you're aiming for once you're in labor but it's also the point where your contractions are pretty much non-stop and as intense as they'll ever be because your baby's about ready to head out in the most literal sense of the expression.
If you're in the hospital, and decide to have an epidural, this is when it should be administered - and not sooner, to prevent interfering with labor.
PHASE 4: DELIVERY OF YOUR BABY:
This is an intense time when you push - in heaving intervals of groaning and bearing down like you're trying to take the most massive crap ever - in order to bring your baby out of the birth canal and into the world. This time may be marked by someone coaching you to push/bear down in intervals.
PHASE 5: DELIVERY OF THE PLACENTA:
After giving birth to your now-evicted womb resident, you should try to immediately breastfeed to help deliver the placenta as breastfeeding helps the uterus contract. The contractions you'll experience during this process will be a whimpering shadow of what you felt prior to delivering your baby.
So that's labor and birth in a quick nut-shell.
In the upcoming weeks, we'll cover the insider's view on how best to deal with labor, avoid a c-section, prevent tearing of your perineum, and loads of other surprising and disturbing facts about giving birth.
Until next time...
-AKL
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