Fetal age and gestational age, how to calculate it?

When asked about gestational age, you may find it very easy to answer. Whether it's 3 months, 7 months, or 9 months according to your current condition. But in fact, your gestational age is different from the actual fetal age. So, what is fetal age and how is it different from gestational age? Come on, find out through the following reviews.

What is the age of the fetus?

The age of the fetus, also known as conceptional age , is the age when the fetus begins to form. In other words, the age of the fetus is calculated since the beginning of fertilization between the egg and sperm cells in the uterus.

Calculating the age of the fetus tends to be difficult. The reason is, we will never know for sure when the fertilization process of an egg and sperm cell occurs in the uterus. Except in the IVF process, the fertilization time between the egg and sperm cells can be seen clearly because the doctor himself did it.

Whereas in a pregnancy that occurs naturally (naturally), we will not know for sure when conception began. Therefore, the standard used to date in ultrasound examinations by doctors and midwives is gestational age, not fetal age.

What is gestational age?

When asked, "how many months have you been pregnant?", It would be easy for every woman to answer. Whether it's 4 months, 6 months, or 9 months according to the conditions of the pregnancy. Well, these numbers actually describe your gestational age, also known as gestational age .

Gestational age is calculated from the first day of the last menstruation (HPHT). In fact, however, fetal development may not begin until conception.

This HPHT will reflect when the pregnancy started, usually it will be calculated on a weekly basis or weekly , not monthly. For example, the gestational age of 8 weeks, 16 weeks, 24 weeks, and so on.

What are the consequences if the fetus is smaller or bigger?

When doing an ultrasound examination at an obstetrician, you may be confused when you find out that the gestational age and the age of the fetus are different. It is important to note that fetal age and gestational age are definitely different. This is because the gestational age is not calculated from the actual day of conception.

In addition, differences in fetal age and pregnancy can also be affected by abnormal menstrual cycles. Either it is too long for more than 30 days or too short for less than 25 days. As a result, the HPHT calculations could be missed and cause the age of the fetus to differ from the gestational age.

You may fear that the difference will be bad for the health of the fetus. In fact, some say that if the fetal age is smaller than the gestational age, then you are at risk of miscarriage. However, is that really so?

Don't worry just yet, the fact is that the age of the fetus and different gestational ages does not always have a negative impact on the fetus.

We cannot rely solely on the size and weight of the baby to determine gestational age, as the results can be deceptive. For example, a large baby but small gestational age and vice versa, a small baby but a large gestational age.

For example, you may have seen a woman whose stomach is big like she is 8 months pregnant, but it turns out that her pregnancy is still 5 months old. Vice versa, there are pregnant women whose stomachs are small like they are 6 months pregnant, but in fact they are already 9 months pregnant.

Therefore, you should not only judge the health of the baby by the size of the pregnancy alone.

Remember, don't just stick with gestational age

Most people may be too focused on monitoring body weight and looking at the sex of the baby on ultrasound. In fact, there are other benefits of ultrasound that are also important but often underestimated, namely knowing how well the well-being of the baby in the womb is.

Yes, it is very important to pay attention to the well-being of the baby so that the baby's growth and development remains normal according to his gestational age. The doctor will see if the baby's nutritional needs are fulfilled, his body is in good proportion, his body functions are normal, and so on.

It is not enough to determine the gestational age with just one ultrasound. This requires serial ultrasound or continuous ultrasound to ensure fetal growth is running normally according to gestational age or not. That way, the calculation of gestational age will be more accurate and will not be missed.