As mother and baby adjust to the baby being outside of the womb, continued close contact is be important for both. Ample skin-to-skin contact—in addition to breast-feeding—helps ease this transition. Still, each body needs time to recover. It takes about six weeks after delivery for a woman's blood- flow levels and uterus size to return to pre-pregnancy states.




A year to 16 months after conception, the baby is able to sit up unaided. By this time, the muscles to support the large weight of the head have developed. The body's other systems, which had started to emerge in the embryo so early developed, will continue to grow and strengthen as the baby begins to explore the world.

2 Comments

1. 1. TimothyBrennan 05:07 PM 5/14/10

   Remarkable and astonding... the moment of conception until birth; this is truly a human being at the earliest until full term of nine months. I find the pictures so very awsome!

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2. 2. TimothyBrennan 05:15 PM 5/14/10

   Maybe we think of ourselves this day as fully present and entire as if we always were complete and "in situ"; yet these pictures show us that we are always developing and changing.
   
   What a great adventure for the mother and the baby ... a bond that is rarely broken.

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