Pregnancy Calendar - 1st Week
- It is time to abandon bad habits and start a healthier life-style.
- Preferably eat fresh fruits and vegetables.
- Add folic acid to your diet, which favors the reduction by 75% of the risk of your baby developing a neural tube defect.
- Avoid smoking and alcohol consumption and start exercising.
- Do not socialize in places that are unsanitary and start thinking like a pregnant woman, as to give the best start for your baby.
For the mother:
- Your pregnancy is dated starting from the first day of your last menstrual cycle. Approximately five days after the beginning of your cycle, an ovulum starts to mature in the ovisac, a kind of bag with a liquid in one of your two ovaries. The inside cover of the uterus (endometrium) becomes more compact as it prepares for the implantation of the ovulum, if fertilized. At about the 14th day ovulation occurs. This is the release of the ovulum into the fallopian tube, a pipe that carries the ready-to-be-fertilized ovulum. If not fertilized, the ovulum is discarded along with the endometrium during the next menstrual cycle and the whole process starts again. If fertilization is achieved, by the time your next period is expected to begin you will already be four weeks pregnant.
- For fertilization to take place, one sperm is needed to penetrate and merge with the nucleus of the ovulum. Mature sperm is either discharged during sexual intercourse in the form of a milky fluid as semen, or re-absorbed by the body.
- Your baby inherits 50% of his/her genes from you and the remaining 50% from your partner. Genes determine the overall guidelines which allow a fertilized ovulum to form into a baby.
- Genes determine the blood-type group to which you belong to-A, B, AB or O-, as well as your positive or negative rhesus.
