The first sign of pregnancy is usually a missed period, although this isn’t always because of being pregnant.
Other indicators are feeling sick, especially in the morning and a reduced tenderness in the breast area.
To confirm whether someone is now expecting a baby, a simple test can be purchased at the local pharmacy.
Basically a woman urinates on a plastic indicator and the results are instantly displayed, modern home pregnancy test can also now give a guide to how many weeks a long an individual is. If preferred a family planning clinic or your doctor can perform a more exact test.
An average pregnancy will last forty weeks and conception usually takes place around the time of ovulation. The approximate due date is quite easily calculated as follows. If the initial day of the last period was January 1st by adding nine months the baby should arrive on October 1st of the same year.
If however, the woman has been experiencing irregular periods, whilst for example taking a birth control pill, it will require an examination by a doctor to estimate the expected delivery date.
Either way in the first trimester of the pregnancy an ultrasound examination will take place and this will very accurately know when a baby will be born.
The ultrasound machine will also enable the hospital to measure the size of your baby and be able to detect a healthy heart beat. Furthermore it is at this stage that twins or other multiple pregnancies will show up, something that can often come as quite a shock.
