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 An
unexpected or unwanted pregnancy can
be confusing, exciting, frightening; your thoughts may be going a mile a
minute. You may be focusing entirely on how this pregnancy will change
your life, and deciding what to do about it - keeping your child, giving
your child up for adoption, or aborting your child . Your thoughts may
be all about what will happen when and if you "have the baby." |
In all that mental turmoil, it can be easy to forget
what being pregnant really means; you aren't just "going to have a
baby" - you already have a baby. Right now, at this minute, there
is a little human life growing inside you. You have a son or daughter.
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| At eight weeks
gestation, this fetus is able to kick and straighten his legs,
turn them round and move his arms up and down. |
At ten weeks
gestation, this fetus can move her arms and legs with a range of
movements that are fluid and supple. |
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At 22 weeks
gestation babies are capable of fine hand and finger movements.
In a short space of time this baby scratches, rubs and pats his
cheek before doing the same to his nose. |
This fetus exhibits
behavior identical to what he will do after birth,. If he's held
upright on a flat surface he will try and move forward. |
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| This baby's brain
has developed sufficiently to enable him apparently to sense the
other parts of his body. He can bring his fingertips together so
they touch. |
From about 24 weeks
of pregnancy when retinal development is complete, babies open
and close their eyes intermittently. This helps a baby to
perfect the blinking reflex, which will protect his eyes once
he's born. |
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| Although grasping
begins early it becomes better established during the last
trimester. Babies grasp hands, feet, fingers, toes and, most
commonly, their umbilical cords. |
While newborns do
not smile until 4-6 weeks after birth, babies in the uterus do.
Maybe because the uterus is warm, comfortable, and shielded from
loud noise and bright light. |
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| Fetuses as young as
11 weeks have been seen with their thumbs in their mouths. This
baby started out sucking his smallest toes and gradually moves
on to suck a bigger and better toe. |
Babies produce a motion
approximating to yawning from as early as 12 weeks' pregnancy.
Maybe this is nature's way of ensuring that as soon as she
enters the world, she'll be able to take her first breath.source:
BBC |
If you're considering abortion, you owe it to yourself and your child
to understand fully what you would be aborting before you make any
decisions.
All of the measurements of time in the sections above -- 2 weeks, 3 weeks, etc. --
refer to gestational age, the actual length of time since conception,
unless otherwise specified. These measurements could also be referred to
as 'post-ovulatory' days or weeks. That seems very simple, but many
doctors and other sources of information on prenatal development measure
pregnancy in 'weeks gestation' or 'weeks LMP.' The term 'gestation' is
particularly confusing, since some sources use it to refer to the age of
the prenate (as we do here) and some sources use it to refer to the
length of the pregnancy as measured from the beginning of the woman's
menstrual cycle. 'Weeks LMP' is a little clearer. Using this method, the
woman's pregnancy is measured from the time of her last menstrual
period.
The medical community in general seems confused as to what precisely
they mean by the term "pregnancy." They define pregnancy as
beginning at implantation in some instances; for example, a method of
hormone therapy such as Depo Provera that prevents implantation is
considered contraception, not abortion. For other purposes, however,
pregnancy is measured from the beginning of the menstrual cycle and is
considered the condition of the woman's body, having nothing at all to
do with the implantation, or even existence, of an embryo.
From a social or political standpoint, the reasons for this confusion
is obvious. Defining pregnancy as beginning at implantation dehumanizes
the early embryo, and allows for widespread acceptance of birth control
methods that would be much more controversial if their true nature were
understood. Defining pregnancy as the condition of the woman's body, an
alternative to her normal cycles, makes the entire process seem like it
is about her and her body alone. Again, the embryo is ignored.
From a practical standpoint, these many different standards make
researching prenatal development rather complicated. I have attempted to
assure that all data is attributed to the correct gestational age. I
have tried to cross-reference my sources -- for example, Geraldine Lux
Flanagan's "Beginning Life" attributes facial sensitivity to
the embryo at 6 weeks of age. The Association for Pre- and Peri-Natal
Psychology and Health sets the onset of tactile sensitivity at 8 weeks.
On that basis, I assumed that the APPPAH was using weeks gestation
measured from the beginning of the woman's menstrual cycle, and Ms.
Flanagan was using weeks gestation to refer to the age of the embryo. If
that is the case, their observations coincide. Thus, I subtracted two
weeks from all ages mentioned by the APPPAH, converting weeks LMP to
weeks gestational age (if you find this confusing, don't worry, you're
in good company). Hopefully, this is accurate.
Sonya Volkhardt
AbortionTV Staff
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pleasure, and
remember his or her experiences? To learn more about how your unborn
child experiences the "world" of your womb, read 