37 Weeks Pregnant - What to Expect

Track your pregnancy with our app: https://wte.onelink.me/85iI/29dt1g98 Your baby is practicing breathing, sucking and blinking this week, preparing for life outside the womb.

Learn more about week 37 of pregnancy: https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnanc...

Transcript:

At week 37, the average baby measures about 19 inches long and weighs about 6 ½ pounds, about as much as a canary melon. Hungry for more baby intel? Fat continues to accumulate all over your little one's body, forming dimples on the elbows, knees and shoulders, and creases and folds in the neck and wrists.

Your baby is keeping busy in anticipation of delivery day by practicing to make perfect, inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid to get the lungs ready for that first breath, sucking that little thumb to prepare to suckle at the breast or bottle, and blinking those eyes to practice for the transition from a dark cocoon to the bright lights of life on the outside. It won't be long before you're gazing into those eyes yourself.

If you feel sharp, stabbing pains in your pelvis, don't stress. This is a common late pregnancy symptom called lightning crotch. Got your attention? Lightning crotch will do that, big-time. It probably comes from all that pressure on the nerve endings in your poor pelvis. Are you suddenly breathing a little more easily and peeing a lot more often? That, plus an increase in pelvic pressure and pain, may be a sign that your baby has dropped into your pelvis. This is a process called engagement, or lightening, since it lightens the pressure on your long-cramped diaphragm.

Lightening is more likely to take place two to three weeks ahead of labor if it's your first time, or just before labor if your uterus has already been there, done that. It also means that your little bundle is locked and loaded and in position for departure, even if that departure isn't imminent.