CFD 1450 Lecture Notes - Lecture 30: Prenatal Development, Low Birth Weight, Birth Weight
CHAPTER 3- PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT
Why Have Children?
• In western nations, having children is a matter of individual choice
• 90% of U.S. adults have or plan to have children
• Depending on:
o Financial circumstances
o Career goals
o Values
o Health conditions
• Advantages:
o Personal fulfillment
o Being a responsible and mature adult
o Caregiving and support in old age
o Continuing the family name
o Strengthening couple relationship
• Disadvantages:
o Responsibility for child’s well-being
o Role overload
o Financial strain
o Loss of privacy
How Large a Family?
• Average number of children has declined in western nations since 1960
• More effective birth control
• Fewer children more compatible with women’s careers
• Divorce
o Low-SES mothers tend to have more children
American Mothers Getting Older
• Advantages:
o More emotionally mature
o Financial stability
• Disadvantages:
o Declining reproductive capacity (female and male)
o Increased risk of chromosomal and genetic reserved conception and
implantation
The Course of Prenatal Development
• Fertilization to birth
• Prenatal development lasts approximately 266 days
• Three periods
o Germinal
o Embryonic
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