Pregnancy is the carrying of offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, inside the body of a female between conception and birth. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations (for example, in the case of twins or triplets). Human pregnancy is the most studied of all varieties of pregnancy and is done so within the medical field called obstetrics.


After a woman and man Get Pregnant Childbirth normally happens about 38 weeks from fertilization, roughly 40 weeks from the start of the last menstruation. Thus, pregnancy lasts approximately nine months in most cases. The term embryo is used in reference to the developing baby during the first few weeks, and the term fetus is used from about two months of development until birth occurs..

Before a pregnancy, a female egg has to join with a sperm in a process called "fertilization", often known as conception. Fertilization normally happens through intercourse, in which a sperm fertilizes an egg. Pretty basic stuff, right? However, the creation of artificial insemination now allows for women to get pregnant if medical conditions in either of the couple make the abillity to get pregnant through intercourse difficult, or if a woman chooses to have a child without a male partner. Pregnancy is most often dated from the first day of a woman's last menstrual period, or "LMP". This is used to figure out the expected date of delivery.

In many medical and legal definitions human pregnancy is divided into three trimesters as a means to categorize the different stages of prenatal development. The first trimester has the biggest chance of miscarriage. During the second trimester, the development of the fetus is much easier to keep tabs on. The beginning of the third trimester is usually the point of viability, or the ability of the fetus to survive outside of the uterus.