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What is the First Trimester, Anyway?

The word “trimester” means “three months.” Since medical science set the clock of a normal full-term pregnancy at about 40 weeks (38 to 42 being a healthy range), the term of trimester can be confusing.

In fact, you’re not actually pregnant the first week or two of the time allotted to your pregnancy. Yes, you read that correctly!

Conception typically occurs about two weeks after your period begins. To calculate your due date, your health care provider will count ahead 40 weeks from the start of your last period. This means your period is counted as part of your pregnancy — even though you weren’t pregnant at the time.

Now, if you break up the normal pregnancy into thirds, you’ll get a “first trimester” that is 13 weeks, or a little over 3 months.

It has been tradition for health care providers and the rest of us to talk about a pregnancy in three trimesters to help give pregnancy a beginning, middle, and end. Now, most providers actually talk about your pregnancy in weeks, rather than months or trimesters. However, the notion of trimester is still important in helping the mother-to-be and those around her to identify different stages in the pregnancy, to have an expectation of what is going to happen, and to count down the days.

© 2008 The First Trimester.