Week 28: The baby now uses the four senses—vision, hearing, taste, and touch. He/she can recognize mother's voice.
Week 32: The skin begins to thicken, with a layer of fat stored underneath for insulation and nourishment. Antibodies increasingly build up. The baby absorbs a gallon of amniotic fluid per day.
Week 38-40: The baby is ready for birth. The average duration of pregnany is 280 days from the first day of the mother's last menstrual period, but this varies. Most babies (85-95%) are born somewhere between 266 and 294 days. By this time, the infant normally weighs 6 to 9 pounds and his/her heart is pumping about 250 gallons of blood a day. The baby is fully capable of life outside the womb.
Pictures used on this site were taken, with permission, from the Westside Pregnancy Resource Center website.
For more resources and information, visit their site at www.wprc.org.
For more information about pre-born development, click here.
Print Page
