Fast facts about pregnancy

By: Maddy


The myths revolving around pregnancy have been many and as extreme as the mind can imagine. One old wives tale spoke of how eating strawberries while pregnant would result in red splotches dotting the baby's body. There are many people who believe that a needle, or wedding ring, dangling from a thread can determine the sex of the baby. The real mystery of being pregnant is how great the odds are that it does not occur. It involves quite a few factors.

Each month in a woman's body ovulation occurs. Ovulation is when the ovary releases an egg and it travels down the Fallopian tubes. In order for reproduction to occur sperm must come into contact with the egg and then become implanted in the uterus. At this point pregnancy becomes very real.

What happens when semen comes into contact with a fertile egg? Pregnancy results and the new parents are headed down the mysterious and delightful path to giving birth to a child. There really is not a lot of mystery to becoming pregnant. It is a simple act yet one that can often thwart would-be parents in their efforts to become pregnant. There are hundreds of books and magazines, as well as physicians, which can help to become parents.

In a healthy female of reproductive age the ovaries produce a single egg. It makes a journey down the Fallopian tubes where ideally it becomes fertilized before implanting into the uterus. The fertilization can occur through normal intercourse or can occur within a Petri dish in the case of artificial insemination. The resulting fertilized egg is the beginning of pregnancy.

Early pregnancy is a dangerous time for the embryo. If the implantation occurs in the fallopian tubes then it is termed an ectopic pregnancy is diagnosed and it becomes a danger to the mother. Ectopic implantation can not be a viable pregnancy and must be diagnosed early. As the embryo grows, if it is not in its proper place within the uterus, it begins to burst from the surrounding tissue and can result in the death of the mother.

Pregnancy signs vary in different people. Some women report nausea and vomiting while others have no upset stomach and feel completely normal. The special cases are the ones where the mother had no idea she was pregnant until she began having labor pains. Rest assured though, these are very rare.
Usually early pregnancy signs are a missed period, tender breasts, and sometimes a hormonal surge.

A rare situation that occurs sometimes between partners is a sympathetic pregnancy. A sympathetic pregnancy is one where the spouse has all of the symptoms that the expectant mother has or should be having. These "phantom" pains are very real for the partner. The nausea, pains, fatigue are all convincing signs that pregnancy is not as easy as one might think.

The pregnancy is divided into stages called trimesters. These trimesters are roughly three months long and are used to mark the changes that the woman's body and growing child go through. As each one draws to a close the woman comes closer and closer to the due date. Nine months can seem like a long time but mothers will later look back on how fast the time sped by and how quickly the big day appeared.

The physician overseeing the mom and unborn child will discuss labor and talk about secondary measures that can occur if natural childbirth is going to endanger the mother or child. For as advanced as the science realm has become there is still only one way for a child to be born. It is the sole propriety of a female to be able to give birth after the pregnancy is at its end. Without them we would simply not be here.

Myth: I can't get pregnant if my hymen doesn't break.
Fact: Your hymen has nothing to do with your ability to get pregnant. As well, many girls' hymens don't break when they have sex for the first time (you might have also heard of this as "popping the cherry"). The hymen is a thin piece of skin that stretches across the opening of your vagina. There are different hymen sizes and openings while some girls may not even seem to have a hymen. Plus, your hymen can break from doing things like horseback riding or even riding your bike. If you have had unprotected sex, you can get pregnant, no matter what state your hymen is in.


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