Pregnancy Due Date

Do You Know How to Calculate Your Pregnancy Due Date?
By Wendy Simons

Many of us wonder at the ease and accuracy with which the doctor quotes the pregnancy due date for his patients. I am sure you would have wondered how the doctor does it. The doctors usually do this with the help of a formula. In fact, there are many ways to calculate the due date right, from computerized formulas, to the primitive way of counting nine months from the day your period stopped.

Finding Out Where the Nine Months End

Methods vary from region to region, from country to country, and from ethnicity to ethnicity. Since all over the world people feel the need to know when they expect to have the baby, some method or other is adopted and standardized. Most of these formulas are highly accurate and reliable.

In ancient civilizations people had various ways to calculate the pregnancy due date and they did it with exceptional accuracy. Most of the calculations then were based on the phases of the moon. The medicine and related branches were actually quite advanced for those times. As proof of their capacity of applying knowledge to practice, we have the Chinese pregnancy calendar, where one can quite accurately predict the gender of the child using only the month of conceiving and the age of the mother for information.

In modern days, the most popular way to calculate the pregnancy due date is by adding the total period (nine months) to the first day of the last menstruation period and then subtracting two weeks from the resulting figure. For example, if the last menstruation period date was on November 1, 2005, after adding forty weeks to it and then subtracting two weeks from this date, you will get July 15, 2006 as the due date. This formula is also known as the last menstrual period or the LMP formula.

There is another, very simple way to calculate the pregnancy due date. This is called Naegle’s Formula. Find out the first day of your last menstrual period. From there, go back exactly three months. Add to the date you got seven days, and the result is your due date.

Modern technology will have you use ultrasound to accurately calculate your pregnancy due date. This date is most of the time almost 98 percent accurate because it is calculated taking into consideration the developmental stage of the fetus. Computerization is definitely more advantageous and accurate than any other method available.

Author Details:
Wendy Simons, copywriter for various websites about health and beauty she also makes contributions to the A-Z of.com.

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