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40 Weeks |
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If your baby is of average weight she’ll be about 7.5lbs or 3.5 kilos now - boys are usually slightly heavier than girls. The fat stores that your baby has been laying on now make up 15% of her total body weight, plenty to help regulate her temperature out of the womb. Her nails are probably quite long and will probably need trimming shortly after birth and she may even have scratched herself in the womb. The fine lanugo that protected her body in the womb will have largely disappeared. When born your baby’s skin colour will vary between a whitish pink and a bluish pink. The pigment that adds colour, Melanin, isn’t produced until after exposure to light.
Babies have more than seventy different reflexes when they are born. These automatic, unlearned behaviors are necessary for survival. While in the womb you provide your baby with antibodies and make their immune system stronger. These immunities that you pass on to your baby will stay with them for the first six months of their lives. Because of your hormones passing on to the baby, your baby may have enlarged genitals when they are born. Hormones can also cause both little boys and little girls to secrete milk from their nipples.
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