Watching your belly grow and enlarge during pregnancy, as your baby develops, is a great way to pass the time in the long nine months of pregnancy. However, when it comes to belly size in pregnancy, your grannies and old wives will have many stories and tales telling you what to expect and what to—none of them backed by science, where your relatives and friends will have numerous opinions and suggestions to give, advising you about your weight gain and the belly size.
The baby’s size is a crucial factor that helps determine the health and weight of the unborn baby. Therefore, the ever-growing size of your belly is an indicator of the well-being and healthy development of the baby. On the other hand, if the baby is not growing and developing at an average pace, it indicates the presence of some congenital disability or pregnancy anomaly.
The size of your baby tells a lot about the nutrients you are consuming, the presence of genetic disorders, and the blood flow to the fetus. For example, if the belly grows faster, it indicates a diabetic condition or assigns an inaccurate due date.
Ways to estimate the size of your baby:
The most straightforward measure of the baby’s size is to take measurements of the mother’s uterus. 12t week sin to the pregnancy, your doctor will pull out a measuring tape and scale the distance between the pubic bone and the top of the baby bump—this distance is also called the fundal height of the baby. The fundal height is different for every pregnant lady. Suppose the fundal height is consistently larger or smaller than the standard size. In that case, you might conceive a big or small baby, depending on the degree of variation from the standardized measurement.
However, going for an ultrasound is widely practised to determine the baby’s size. A routine ultrasound tells you the size of the head, the length of the femur and the accurate measurement of the abdomen. Used in different formulas, these numbers help calculate the baby’s size and weight.
However, if you are not at risk of delivering a big or small baby, then going for an extra ultrasound to determine the baby’s size is not recommended.
What to expect?
From worrying about the size and fitting of the baby’s clothes to focusing on the physical aspect of the labour pain, moms have various reasons to know the baby’s size. Unfortunately, neither the tape measurement nor the ultrasound reports give you an accurate and exact approximation of the baby’s size. Still, all these techniques help the doctor make a calculated guess regarding the baby’s size and the associated labour pain with it. In addition, the specialist and doctors at Ultrasound Plus give you detailed and accurate information about the baby’s size and other similar details.
