Mom

If your baby isn’t born by next week, keep in touch with your obstetrician. During these last weeks it is extra important that they keep a close eye on you and your baby to ensure that you both stay healthy.

The delivery will require a lot of energy and there will be little time to rest after the delivery. The end is in sight, perhaps you will give birth this week, but it may also take another three weeks. The wait is almost over and this is exciting. It is possible that you already have serious Braxton Hicks or practice contractions.

Your body is working hard to provide your baby with oxygen and nutrients and remove all waste products. You are also passing antibodies to your baby via the placenta. You baby is getting a supply of antibodies for almost all contagious diseases your body has overcome or against which you have been vaccinated. The first few months after the birth, this offers extra protection until his or her own immune system takes over. This is why his or her first vaccination will be after two months.

Baby

Your belly is now entirely filled with the baby, it is now the size of a pumpkin. Sometimes you feel the pokes, pushes and kicks in three places at once.

He or she is ready to go in front of the cervix. The bones of your child are still flexible enough to easily adapt to the birth canal during the delivery. The head can also go through the cervix because there are openings between the skull bones (fontanels). The skull bones can slide over each other during the birth so the head becomes slightly narrower and can fit through the cervix better. Right after the delivery this can make the head seem a little oval, but this will rectify itself soon.