The Week with Four Sundays

[dougmander]

It's Wednesday, and I'm enjoying my third consecutive snow day at home. We had about two feet of snow on Saturday and Sunday, and today, an additional 5-8 inches are falling. Although I work at an independent charter school, we can't operate if Cambridge public schools declare a snow day, because we rely on the public schools for crossing guards

Comments

[hhw]

what's the difference between full term and due date?

hooray for the run of snow days AND the fact that you won't have to join the rest in making them up in June!

[alikander]

The due date is based on the average duration of gestation. That's traditionally 280 days (40 weeks) from the start of the Last Menstrual Period (LMP), although more recent studies (Mittendorf) (e.g. in the 20th as opposed to 19th century) have shown that the average is 288 days for Caucasian first-time women (primiparas).

Being "full term" is a semi-arbitrary milestone. Before the end of the 37th week, a fetus is considered premature, and if I were to start to experience labor contractions, I would call my doctor sooner, and she would most likely try to halt labor. After the end of the 37th week, the fetus is considered mature; if I start labor, I notify my doctor later, and it is not stopped. At this point, the only organ they're worried about being underdeveloped is the lungs. Sometimes, especially with high-risk pregnancies (e.g. multiples or pre-eclampsia), they'll do an amniocentesis to see how developed the lungs are (not sure how amniotic fluid shows lung development, but it does), and based on the results may deliver the

[rabidotter]

How does a week have four Sundays? Is that day more relaxing than Saturday?

[dragonfall]

Lovely all the way around -- enjoying snow days and beautiful views, and hoping to see space babe flyby's (if that makes sense, I mean the birds flying by in honor of said space babe, if that makes any more sense). It's the end of the day, I'm tired, and perhaps even less coherent than usual...