Week 41 of Pregnancy: Fetal Stress Hormones

*** Note from new mom- So I just logged in to my main page of What to expect . com to get a baby at week 41 update only to find a your newborn at day 4 update. I think I am going to have to change that because CLEARLY i do not have a 4 day old new born. I have always suspected the doctors had my due date wrong. I thought bean should be due this upcoming Sunday. We'll see who bean agrees with. Anyway- here is this week's update. I will post again if there is a baby or after my Doctor's appointments on Friday. Have a great week! ****


Looks like baby is staying put for a while? That's okay — there's still work to be done at 41 weeks pregnant.

Gearing up for the big day is your baby's endocrine system — responsible for hormone production. Researchers theorize that baby actually sends some chemical signals (aka hormones) to the placenta to trigger labor to begin (as in: "Get me out of here, Mom!"). Other hormones are standing by, too. During childbirth, your baby will produce more stress hormones than any other time in his or her life (and you thought you were stressed out now!). But those hormones will actually help your baby adjust rapidly to life outside the womb and help all those survival instincts to kick in as he or she becomes untethered from the placenta that has provided life support for the past nine months.

Another big job ahead for your baby will be taking that first breath of air. In fact, the first breath at birth requires considerably more effort than any breath your baby will ever take again. That's because the tiny air sacs in the lungs need to be inflated for the first time so that they expand to fully do their job — of breathing for a lifetime.