Monday, August 23, 2010

How old is Camille?

That's hard to say. Camille was born July 1, 2010. Simple math tells you that Camille is 7 weeks, 4 days. Ah! It is not that simple though! Camille was born at 33 weeks, 6 days gestation. A term pregnancy is 40 weeks gestation so Camille's due date was determined to be August 13th. That means that she was born 6 weeks premature. For the next year, Camille will have both her chronological age (based on her birthday) and her adjusted age (based on her due date). Chronological age is used to calculate things like vaccination schedule and her adjusted age is for developmental milestones and weight. She may be 7 weeks old, but she looks like a newborn since she is only 7 1/2 pounds. Camille will have her first set of shots at her 2 month appointment (chronological age) which will be around September 1st. Her chronological age will be 8 1/2 weeks. Her adjusted age will be 2 1/2 weeks. So basically you just subtract 6 weeks (how many weeks early she was) from her actual age and you have her adjusted age. Her adjusted age is important. When term babies reach developmental milestones like holding up their heads, grasping toys, etc., they usually do so at around a certain time. We will use her adjusted age to determine if she is on track rather than her chronological age.

So, Camille is 7 1/2 weeks old (chronologically) and her adjusted age is 1 1/2 weeks. At this point, term babies are considering things like discovering their hands (2-3 months), smiling (1-3 months) and cooing (2-4 months). Camille will not likely reach those milestones for another month or so due to her adjusted age.

HOWEVER, Camille is a rockstar and can develop at any rate she darn well pleases. I've definitely seen some smiles already!

After the first year she will likely be caught up and the adjusted age will no longer be relevant.

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