top of page

1st Week of Pregnancy



As is known, pregnancy is a process that lasts 9 months and 10 days. However, in modern obstetrics, the practice of examining this process by dividing it into months has been abandoned, and the baby's development and changes in the mother have begun to be examined by dividing the 9-month, 10-day process into weeks. According to this system, pregnancy lasts an average of 40 weeks, with a few weeks of variation. However, in the application of trimester tests that allow the examination of baby development, the month calculation is still used. The start date of your pregnancy is calculated based on the first day of your last menstrual period.


As mentioned, the development of the baby in the womb is observed by weeks and the fertilization of the egg cell and several subsequent stages occur in the first week of pregnancy. The egg cell, which begins to mature with the first day of the menstrual cycle, is in a fluid-filled sac from the beginning of maturation. This sac, also called a follicle, reaches a diameter of 18-20 cm as the egg cell matures and cracks. After this stage, the released egg cell is thrown into one of the fallopian tubes, which are canal-shaped structures located on the right and left sides of the uterus, to be fertilized and left to mature there. The egg cell expelled from your ovaries falls into the fallopian tubes when this cell is caught by the hairs at the end of your fallopian tubes, which are called ciliated funnels in medical terms, and directed to your fallopian tubes. The fertilization of the egg cell caught by the hairs occurs in your fallopian tube. After the fertilization stage, the structure, which can no longer be called an egg cell but an embryo, is directed to your uterus by means of the fine hairs in your fallopian tubes. During this time, your uterus is in the process of preparing for pregnancy. The stimulation of the uterus to enter this process is provided by the hormone progesterone, and this hormone is secreted from the structure called the corpus luteum, which is formed during the rupture of the structure called the follicle. In other words, whether pregnancy occurs or not, the inner layer of the uterus is regularly prepared for pregnancy every month. During this preparation phase, the inner wall of the uterus is enriched with blood vessels and becomes capable of nourishing the embryo.


As you can see, the developments in the first week of your pregnancy take place in the structures related to your body. During this time, many hormonal changes occur in your body thanks to the hypothalamus, which controls the ovulation cycle, and your body is, in a sense, preparing for pregnancy.

コメント


bottom of page