Pregnancy Week 36

What happens to you?

You will probably start to see your healthcare practitioner every week from this week until you finally give birth.

Most babies will be in a head down position at this point. However, about 4% of the babies will be breech, which means the baby's buttocks will be down instead. Don't worry if your baby is breech. There are special exercises that your doctor will give you to do that will encourage the baby to turn around into the head down position. If the exercises do not work, your doctor might try manually turning the baby. This is called an external cephalic version (ECV).

What happens to the baby?

The baby continues to grow bigger every day and sometime soon will "drop" down into your pelvis. This will help you breathe more easily, but unfortunately you will now have to urinate even more often than you have been. If you were to start having regular contractions now, your practitioner will probably not try to stop your labor.

The baby weighs about 5 pounds 2 ounces (2.3 kilograms) and measures 45 cm or 17.8 inches in length. This is an estimation only, since toward the end of pregnancies babies' weights vary widely. Your practitioner can palpate (feel through your abdomen) to guesstimate the weight. However, this is just a guess, so you may be surprised at the baby's actual weight at birth.

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