Stella Dantas, MD OB/GYN: So your baby at 33 to 36 weeks is actually fairly large at this point. The baby can be five to six pounds, or even bigger in some pregnancies at this point.
Shauna Hicks, MD OB/GYN: Babies also at this stage may start to turn into the head down position to get ready for birth, but not all babies do at this stage yet.
Stella Dantas, MD OB/GYN: All it's organs are functioning well, it's breathing well, but it still needs time to practice breathing. And it's still going through a physiological process of making sure the lungs are fully developed.
Shauna Hicks, MD OB/GYN: Babies that are born prematurely at this stage tend to do very, very well, but they're still not fully grown. They're still getting a little bit more lung development, a little bit more brain development. They tend to do very well, but we hope to keep them in a little longer if we can.
Stella Dantas, MD OB/GYN: However, should you go into labor after 36 weeks, we don't do anything aggressively to try to stop you, because babies do so well at this point.
- 2615 views
