When will my baby be born?
Determining your due date can seem like a maze these days. How do you do it and what does it all mean? Let’s take a look at the history of determining due dates and how it affects when your baby will be born. Dr. Naegele, circa 1850, determined that the average length of human gestation was approximately 266 days from conception. He assumed that the average woman had cycles that lasted 28 days and that she ovulated on Day 14 of her cycle. He used his data to come up with a mathematical calculation for due dates: ((LMP + 7 days) – 3 months) = Due Date EX: ((January 1, 1996 + 7 days) – 3 months) = October 8, 1996 However, Dr. Naegele did not consider certain factors in his calculation. For example: Not every woman ovulates on Day 14. Other situations that he did not factor in were ethnicity, parity (how many successful pregnancies), prenatal care, better nutrition, and screening factors. Today we still use Naegele’s rule to
