The due date of a pregnancy is the estimated date of the baby’s birth. It is estimated that the due date is 40 weeks from the first day of the last menstrual period. The due date can be calculated in more than one ways, but none of those can help define a due date with absolute certainty. Hence, it is always an estimation.
What Is My Due Date?
Therefore, the doctors monitor the growth of the baby every month and then on more frequent basis as the estimated due date comes closer. This helps the doctor to predict the due date with some more certainty.
Normally, the due date should be calculated from the date of conception. However, since it may not be possible to know the date of conception, the medical community uses the first day of the last period as the reference. Since, it many women do not remember the first day of their last period, calculating the due date using this method is seldom precise.
A second method adopted by the doctor is using the ultrasound to determine the size of the baby sometime after the baby is about 7 weeks old and before the baby in the uterus is less than 3 months of age. As if things cannot get more complicated, not all babies grow the same way in the uterus. The ones who grow more or less than normal, may not help predicting their due date with any certainty or precision.
If the information about the first date of the last period is available, it can be used with the information from the ultrasound test to come to a more precise due date.
Again, the due date is an approximation. Less than 5 percent of the children are actually born on the predicted due date. Therefore, as the time nears, it is important to have more frequent and regular check ups so the doctor can monitor the progress of the pregnancy and make you prepared for the big day!
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