Your birth plan: what to decide and what to ask the maternity unit
A short birth plan helps you think about your birth partner, pain relief, time with your baby and feeding before contractions begin.
4 min read
Third trimester
Week 37 of pregnancy
Your baby is the size of a bunch of chard. From week 37 the pregnancy is called full term: the baby is practising sucking, gripping and breathing.
Your baby is the size of a bunch of chard
- Length, head to heel
- ≈ 48.6 cm
- Weight
- ≈ 2.9 kg
Your baby this week
- From this week the pregnancy is called full term.
- The baby practises sucking, gripping and breathing.
- The extra fat helps it keep warm after birth.
Your body this week
- The mucus plug may come away from your cervix, a sign your body is getting ready, though labour may start days or weeks later.
- Braxton Hicks contractions may get more frequent.
- Sleep may be broken by the size of your bump and thoughts about the birth.
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Read more for this stage
Pain relief in labour: from breathing to an epidural
The ways to ease labour pain, what an epidural does and does not do, and the questions worth asking your maternity unit before the birth.
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The stages of labour: from the first contraction to the placenta
What happens at each stage of labour, how long it usually lasts, when to set off for the maternity unit and when to call straight away.
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General information written by the mam.al editors. Every pregnancy is different and sizes are averages; it does not replace advice from your doctor or midwife. Sources include the NHS week-by-week guide to pregnancy. NHS. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.