Miracle of Birth: the Process of Prenatal and Brain Development
Prenatal development is the process of rapid growth and change of a zygote to a fully formed baby that begins about 40 weeks prior to birth. It is divided into three trimesters where the first ends at the end of the embryonic stage, the second around the 20th week of pregnancy, and the third ends at birth. These trimesters do not correspond with the three stages of prenatal development known as germinal, embryonic, and fetal. The germinal stage marks the beginning of prenatal development when the zygote begins to rapidly divide for one week after conception. However, less than one-half of the zygotes will survive past the first two weeks. The zygotes become more specialized as
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The brain continues to grow and rapidly develops in three stages known as Neurogenesis, Synaptogensis, and synaptic pruning. Neurogenesis describes the process of rapid division within the nervous system to create functional regions of the brain where most of the process is complete before birth while some regions continue to form after birth such as hippocampal cells. Synaptogensis forms new connections between neurons as over time connections increase in density where some only form one synapse and others form hundreds of thousands. Synaptic pruning removes synapses due to the fact some are only needed temporarily, some are damaged or become dysfunctional, or that some are not used often enough so they are removed for specialization. The newly formed fetus from weeks 9 to 12 shows signs of simple movement with reflexes in arms and legs while sex organs begin to differentiate. Fingers, fingerprints, and toes are fully formed around week 16 and around week 24 the fetus develops response to sound. More remarkably the brain doubles in size between week 16 and 28, while developing basic behavior. The fetus gains greater coordination skills as the cerebral cortex grows larger and personality also develops. Around the 28th week the fetus can mediate sensory input as thalamic brain connections form, such as responding to bright light from within the dark womb. Growth slows down around the 30th or 32nd week but the fetus continues to gain weight and by week 37 has developed all organ systems necessary to survive outside the uterus. Prenatal development ends with the birth of the fetus around 38 to 40 weeks
During the third to eighth week of conception, fingers, arm bones, and toes are being formed. Limbs start off as buds that then extend outward. This is all due to the DNA that is in each and every cell in the body.
Beginning at four weeks, the neurons begin to develop, 500 thousand per minute. The neurons begin to build the brain, by making layers. The video uses the example of an onion being built in layers. Neurons are the only cells that have to move along in a “migration” path to form the brain. Scientists have found that the neurons know where they are migrating to, and
I decided to discuss the second trimester stage of development because for me, with both of my pregnancies, that is when I started to get really excited about having a baby. There is the whole scare of losing the baby in the first trimester but also that’s when I started to feel the baby move, both times in the 16th week, when the baby, and myself, grew the most (I gained 8 pounds in the 5th month with both pregnancies), and when I got so heavy I had to walk instead of run, it was actually faster from about 18 weeks on. Babycenter.com says that the fetus of 14 weeks of age is the size of a lemon, 3 ½ inches long and weighing 1 ½ ounces, while parents.com says it’s the same weight and length but the size of a peach. At 27 weeks both sites said the babies are at 2+ pounds, 9.25-14 inches long and either the size of a head of cauliflower or a sock monkey (which wasn’t fun to look at when your trying to picture a cute little baby). On page 96 of the textbook in Figure 5.8 it is confirmed that after the 16th week the mother may start to feel the baby move. The fetus is also forming small hairs all over the body, including the scalp, and the lungs are beginning to
The embryonic stage begins on the third week after conception and lasts until the eighth week after conception. It is during this third week that the embryo begins to develop a neural tube, which will then become the spinal column and brain. Some cells are unique in that they come together to form neural progenitor cells, which then duplicate several times until some produce neurons. Other structures that begin to form in the third week are the digestive system and circulatory system. During the fourth week structures such as the head, eyes, nose, ears, and mouth begin to take shape. In addition, the heart continues to develop and starts to produce a beat. By week five, tiny outgrowths that will transform into arms and legs, start to appear. Shortly after, the arms, hands, legs, and feet all begin to grow and around 53 days after conception, the fingers and toes separate.
Before the miracle of birth, pregnant women must deal with quite a bit of discomfort. Pains, swelling, hormonal changes. A woman’s skeletal and muscular system have to adapt as a baby grows in the womb and creates a new center of gravity. As this happens the muscles of the expecting mother must work much harder to keep her standing upright. The progression of this then creates a lactic acid as well as toxin build up and causes toxins to make muscle fibers stick together. This in turn irritates the nerve endings and creates pain. Lower back pain is a common example of this and upper back pain due to growth in breast size during the first trimester.
The creation of a human being is a remarkable event in itself, and given the sheer magnitude of the developmental changes that take place for the fetus in such a short amount of time is nothing short of amazing. Tracking the development of a fetus is primarily broken down week by week. Although we often generalize into nine months or three trimesters, it takes places over the course of approximately 37 to 41 weeks. The gestation period is the time span between conception and birth, and while it is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment of conception we typically consider the beginning of a pregnancy to be the first day of the woman’s last period or menstrual cycle.
The five major processes that occur during the prenatal and postnatal periods of human development- Proliferation, Migration, Differentiation, Myelination and Synaptogensis. Each stage relies on the properly assembly of neuronal connections to assure a fully functioning organism. Proliferation is the initial stage, activated during unification period of sperm and egg. This is where new cells begin to divide, first forming brain cells. These brain cell originate from stem cells, which can be specialized into nearly any cell in the human body. Once the proliferation process is underway, which research suggests is less than first after conception, the cells divide uncontrollably. At over two hundred thousand cells per minute, they do not stop
The first stage of pregnancy, or the first trimester, starts the moment the egg is fertilized. As the oocyte travels from the fallopian tube to the uterus, where it will implant in the uterine wall, it undergoes rapid mitosis. During this stage, the egg is known as a zygote. After attaching to the uterus’ wall the zygote will continue to undergo mitosis and grow in size. The organs then begin to develop.
During these 3 months of the first trimester the Blastocyst has undergone many changes. The umbilical cord has not been attached. After the umbilical cord has attached the ,Blastocyst is now called an Embryo.The last major change the Embryo has gone through is the development of some major organs. The brain and spine and heart are starting to significantly develop.
Gestation is the process of development between the first day of the mother’s last normal period and birth, which is calculated to last approximately 40 weeks.3 This means that week one is the female’s period, week two is ovulation, and week three is fertilization.5
In normal prenatal development, individualized cells such as blood cells, kidney cells, and nerve cells begin to develop around 5-weeks gestation. This is also when the baby’s brain and spinal cord begin to develop, laying the framework for some of the most essential structures for human life. One week later, at week 6 gestation, the brain begins to form into 5 separate sections and spine tissue grows more rapidly. At week 27 the nervous system is so developed, it is able to control certain functions of the body. Once the brain is formed it processes information by way of neurons. Neurons are specialized cells that
Human development is a continuous process that begins when an ovum is fertilised by a sperm. There have many process such as cell division, growth, differentiation and even cell death transform the fertilised ovum into a multicellular
The brain, which is the command center for the whole body must go through many changes in order to reach its full potential. To begin, the once the sperm fertilizes the egg it becomes a zygote. After that happens within 12 hours, the single cell begins to divide to form a mass of homogenous cells. After 3 days the divisions form a mass of cells that continually divide to form the blastocyst. Within 5 days the blastocyst would have migrated to the uterus and hatched and began to invade into the uterine lining to implant. If it does implant by 1-2 weeks the embryo starts to separate into three distinct cell layers: the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. The ectoderm, which is the outer most layer, will form the skin and the peripheral nervous
During the germinal stage the organism divides, becomes more complex and is located by itself in the wall of the uterus. The union to the uterus marks the end of the germ stage and occurs approximately 2 weeks after conception. Within 36 hours after fertilization, the zygote with a single cell that will be the baby enters a period of rapid cell division mitosis seventy and two hours after fertilization, has been divided into 32 cells
The first trimester is the first stage of pregnancy. In this stage, zygote, embryo and fetus development occur in the first three month. The first two weeks are not actually considered as pregnant. Pregnancy will start about two weeks after the last period begins. In this stage, the germinal stage begins when the sperm and the egg unite in woman fallopian tube to form a zygote which is one celled entity. The formation of zygote