Pregnancy (latin graviditas) is the carrying of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, inside the uterus of a female. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets. Human pregnancy is the most studied of all mammalian pregnancies. Obstetrics is the surgical field that studies and cares for high risk pregnancy. Midwifery is the non-surgical field that cares for pregnancy and pregnant women.

Childbirth usually occurs about 38 weeks after conception, i.e., approximately 40 weeks from the last normal menstrual period (LNMP) in humans. The World Health Organization defines normal term for delivery as between 37 weeks and 42 weeks. The calculation of this date involves the assumption of a regular 28-day period.

Terminology

One scientific term for the state of pregnancy is gravid, and a pregnant female is sometimes referred to as a gravida. Neither word is used in common speech. Similarly, the term "parity" (abbreviated as "para") is used for the number of previous successful live births. Medically, a woman who has never been pregnant is referred to as a "nulligravida", and in subsequent pregnancies as "multigravida" or "multiparous". Hence during a second pregnancy a woman would be described as "gravida 2, para 1" and upon delivery as "gravida 2, para 2". An in-progress pregnancy, as well as abortions, miscarriages or stillbirths account for parity values being less than the gravida number, whereas a multiple birth will increase the parity value. Women who have never carried a pregnancy achieving more than 20 weeks of gestation age are referred to as "nulliparous". The medical term for a woman who is pregnant for the first time is primigravida. , page 596.

The term embryo is used to describe the developing offspring during the first eight weeks following conception, and the term fetus is used from about two months of development until birth.

In many societies' medical or legal definitions, human pregnancy is somewhat arbitrarily divided into three trimester periods, as a means to simplify reference to the different stages of prenatal development. The first trimester carries the highest risk of miscarriage (natural death of embryo or fetus). During the second trimester, the development of the fetus can be more easily monitored and diagnosed. The beginning of the third trimester often approximates the point of viability, or the ability of the fetus to survive, with or without medical help, outside of the uterus.

Progression

Initiation

Pregnancy occurs as the result of the female gamete or oocyte being penetrated by the male gamete spermatozoon in a process referred to, in medicine, as "fertilization", or more commonly known as "conception". After the point of "fertilization" it is referred to as an egg. The fusion of male and female gametes usually occurs through the act of sexual intercourse. However, the advent of artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation have also made achieving pregnancy possible in cases where sexual intercourse does not result in fertilization (e.g. through choice or male/female infertility).