You Are Pregnant for 15 Months

"You are pregnant for 15 months." This huge statement isn't based upon some strange notion of not agreeing to be induced if a baby is over its due date. Its based upon the physiological norms that our babies expect to happen.

When we conceive our much wanted babies, we work out our due dates accurately. We count forward nine months and a week from our last period and arrive at an expected date of delivery. We know religiously how many weeks pregnant we are. In fact in some cases we know how many weeks, days and hours and even minutes pregnant we are. And yet the reality is that we are only actually carry a baby in utero for 38 weeks but we say 40 weeks for ease of calculation and because we cannot accurately predict when we conceived. There is always the caveat that actually there is a small percentage of us who do actually know the hour and the day when we conceived but that would be another blog.

So now that we have established that we are pregnant, and let's say its nine months for argument's sake, where does the sweeping statement of "pregnant for 15 months" have any credence.

This is based upon what our babies expect from us. Biologically our babies are born very immature, they are unable to survive outside the womb on their own. They are also unable to stand and run around unlike a lot of other mammals and are very under advanced considering in the evolutionary line of things we are very advanced. The reason for this is that the size of the adult human brain would be unable to pass through the 10 cms that nature allocated at birth. So Mother Nature in her wisdom designed our babies to be born and live outside of it's mother's womb at a very immature stage of its development but made a huge allowance for this. Mother Nature did this by designing our babies to still be nurtured fully 100% by its mother for a least an additional 6 months. So if we add the 9 months of internal carrying and nurturing of our babies with the 6 months of external carrying and nurturing of our babies, we as mothers, are pregnant for 15 months.

As humans we are very fortunate. Consider that elephants are actually internally pregnant for 3 years but on the plus side their babies can stand and run at birth. A young elephant calf will continue to nurse for 6 months and will drink 21 pints of milk a day. Imagine trying to express that!

Kangaroos are internally pregnant in the womb for just 39 days but then will nurse for at least 5 months. Another fascinating fact about kangaroos is that they will tandem feed, which means they will feed two joeys of differing ages at the same time and the really incredible feat is that the milk for each joey will be different. Now that is really Mother Nature at its best.

So when considering how to view pregnancy and early babyhood, it is worth the thought that we are actually pregnant for 15 months. So nine months internal, six months eternal.

For more information and support that is tailormade for you as a unique mammal, contact Easy Breastfeeding.