Calculating Your Due Date
Estimating Baby's Time of Arrival
Let me say straight off: babies come out when they want to come out! 40 weeks or 9 months is the average length of a pregnancy but you may hear terms from a doctor, midwife or nurse like EDD or EDC (which are 'Estimated Due Date" or "Estimated Date of Confinement"). Your "due date" is truly a guideline.
Your care provider gives you this "magical number", that all your relatives and friends are just dying to know, by taking the date of the first day of your last period and adding nine months and seven days. Confused yet?
Let's say your LMP (another acronym, get used to them when you are pregnant), started July 1. Okay, July 1, plus seven days is July 8. Then take July 8 and add nine months; which turns out to be April 7 or 8. Your provider also has a handy little wheel, aptly called a "pregnancy wheel" which they scroll to your LMP date and it automatically provides them with the due date.
Other methods you can use are quite simple:
- Take your LMP and subtract about 11 weeks.
- Use your LMP another way and subtract about 3 months.
- There are various on-line calculators that will determine it for you. (do a Google Search or use the Expectant Mother's Guide's Online Pregnancy Calculator)
Now, back to my first statement "babies come out when they want to come out!". A full-term pregnancy is about 36 and 1/2 weeks to 42 weeks. (There is some controversy over the 42 week mark; some providers consider this "late-term" and may talk about inductions anywhere from 40 and 1/2 weeks to the 42 week mark. This is for a variety of reasons; placental death, large baby, etc.)
You should have your BASIC birth bag packed and ready to go at the 36 week mark!
So, the next time someone asks you when you are due, it is best to stay vague and say (in the case of the July 1 LMP) "Oh, late March/early April."
