The moment you find out you are expecting a baby, you cannot wait for your baby’s arrival. You are very eager to meet them and you count down dates right to the day. Now, that is not the only reason one must have a reasonable idea about the due date. Knowing the approximate due date in advance will help you organize things, make contingencies, buy the necessary requirements and baby-proof the house. Therefore, a reliable estimated due date is important. A lot of factors go into calculating the due date of the delivery but it can only go into approximation. Below you will see the factors that are used to predict the due date as close to the actual due date as possible.
Most pregnancies last around 40 weeks on average, so technically you have to count 40 weeks from the first day of your last menstrual period (LMP). There is one more way to do this; it includes subtracting three months from the first day of your last menstrual cycle and adds up seven days to it. Though this looks easy, it might be too much math to do. Our due date calculator week by week calculates your due date with much more ease. All you have to enter is the first day of your last menstrual period, and that’s about it. But this is how your ob-gyn will approximate your due date. It is pretty spot-on but you could deliver a week or two, before or after.
Another important factor to consider while calculating the due date is the conception date. The LMP method could be quite subjective because it only works accurately on women who have a regular menstrual cycle. Women with a relatively irregular cycle might fail to estimate their due date with the LMP method. Just like the calculating with the LMP, you have to add 38 weeks from conception date if you remember it.
If you can’t trace back your LMP, do not remember your conception date or are not sure when the ovulation took place, there are other ways you could calculate the due date. Your first appointment with the doctor post conception can tell you your due date. You can perform an early ultrasound to pinpoint the date, but it is not always to get appropriate results with an early ultrasound. Some doctors perform them on a regular basis but some others only recommend it under special circumstances.
If you want your child to be born on a particular date of significance or otherwise, you could try planning your due date. It needs you to conceive accordingly. If you are one of the luckier women who could get pregnant instantly, your plan might work out and you might deliver your baby when you wish. But your due date can change, even if you planned to the T. There are a lot of reasons but it is mostly nothing to worry about. To minimize confusion, it is very helpful to use the due date calculator to day by day track your baby’s growth.