37 completed weeks is 36 weeks plus 7 days.  Once you are at 37 weeks plus
one day, you are in your 38th week of pregnancy.
Due dates are calculated by figuring 38 weeks from time of conception or 40
weeks from last menses.  A due date generated by ultrasound purports to
pinpoint the 40 week mark, or actually where I live, the 40 week plus 2 day
mark, which is what our domestic ultrasound guru feels is the actual due
date.
37 completed weeks is just that.  37 weeks plus 7 days is 38 completed
weeks.

A baby is in its first year of life (by our system of reckoning) from the
day it is born.  When it reaches its first birthday, it has completed the
first year of life and is aged 1.  Same principle applies to weeks of
pregnancy.

Due dates don't tell us anything at all, nada, nil, about how any individual
baby will respond to extrauterine life.  The odds that it will go easily
seem to increase after 37 completed weeks.  But there are exceptions in both
directions and for both sexes.

Rachel Myr
midwife and IBCLC

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