Pregnancy Week 40: Your Due Date Arrives and Non-Stress Test

Pregnancy week forty marks your due date, the day that you have been waiting for all these months. Your baby is physically ready to make his or her appearance in the world but whether or not he does all depends on one more pregnancy hormone. Your doctor may have you take a non-stress test during your fortieth week of pregnancy.

Pregnancy Week 40: Your Baby is Ready to be Born

The average baby weighs 7 ½ pounds and is twenty-one inches long by the fortieth week of pregnancy. However, your baby can weigh between seven and nine pounds and be between eighteen and twenty-two inches long.

Your baby is fully developed and able to live in the real world. The only thing that everyone is waiting for is the signal from your pituitary gland to release the pregnancy hormone called oxytocin. Oxytocin is responsible for labor contractions.

Pregnancy Week 40: Your Due Date is here!

Your due date is finally here. Not to completely burst your bubble but only about 2% of babies are actually born on their due date and about 50% of babies are born after their due date.

Health care providers do not let pregnancies go past forty-two weeks. As disappointing as it may be to watch your due date come and go, just remember that your baby will be born within the next two weeks.

Pregnancy Week 40: Non-Stress Test

Your doctor may decide to do a non-stress test. A non-stress test monitors your baby's heart rate during uterine activity. Your doctor may do a non-stress test during your fortieth week of pregnancy to make sure the placenta, umbilical cord, and your baby react well to contractions.

You will get to sit in a comfortable chair with your feet up for one hour during the non-stress test. You will have two monitors on your belly. One monitor will track the heart rate of your baby and the other monitor will gauge your uterine contractions.

Your doctor is watching for an increase or decrease in your baby's heart rate when your uterus contracts. Your baby's heart rate should increase with each contraction. If his heart rate dips, then you might be delivering that day.

Even if your due date passes and you are still pregnant remember that you will soon be holding your little one in your arms.

For more pregnancy weeks and fetal development you can read:
Pregnancy Week 36

Pregnancy Week 37

Pregnancy Week 38

Pregnancy Week 39: First Signs of Labor

Click here to find more information on your pregnancy and baby's development.

Sources:

Personal Experience

Fit Pregnancy (2009). Pregnancy Calendar. Retrieved: April 8, 9, 2009. Web Site: fitpregnancy.com/calendar/40251887.html

Myers-Gorrie, Trula, Slone-McKinney, Emily, & Smith-Murray, Sharon (1998). Foundations of Maternal-Newborn Nursing (2^nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: W. B. Saunders Company.

What to Expect (2009). Weekly Pregnancy Calendar. Retrieved:April 8, 9, 2009. Web Site: whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/landing.aspx