At three months the embryo is about three and a half inches long in its curved position. The eyes, ears, fingers, and sexual organs are well formed, and the sex can now be determined. At the end of the third month the placenta is well formed. The foetus is now markedly human, though the head preponderates in size.
At the fourth month the foetus is pretty generally covered with downy hairs; the eyes, nostrils and lips are closed; it can move its limbs freely, and is quite human in appearance. The external sexual organs are well defined.
At the end of four and a half to five months a skilled ear can hear the sounds of the foetal heart through the abdominal walls of the mother, and in specially favorable cases, if the woman's abdominal walls be not too fat, if the room be quiet, and if the listener be skilled in auscultation, it can be heard somewhat earlier.
At the close ei 17 the fourth month the mother can usually distinctly feel the active movements of the foetus "quickening".
The heart sounds of the foetus give absolutely positive signs of pregnancy. The younger the foetus the more rapid they are, and even at birth the child's heart beats are about twice as frequent as the mother's.
A foetus born at Jive months breathes, cries faintly, but dies at the end of a few hours.
At six months the foetus is a little more than a foot in length and weighs in the neighborhood of two pounds.
It may live for from a day to two weeks, and, if kept in an incubator, may possibly survive. At the end of seven months the child is viable capable of surviving though infants born at this time usually succumb.
The popular idea that a "seven months child" is more likely to live than one born at the eighth month is erroneous and unreasonable.
At the end of the eighth month the foetus is about sixteen inches in length and weighs about five pounds.
At the end of nine months the foetus measures nineteen and a half to twenty two inches in length, and averages six or seven pounds.
A child born at nine months is less energetic than at full term, sleeps the greater part of the time, and is less apt to survive.
At the end of pregnancy, i.e., ten lunar months two hundred and eighty days the average length of the child is from twenty to twenty two inches, and its average weight is from six to eight pounds.
Its body is plump and well rounded; the nails on the fingers and toes are hard, and the finger nails project beyond the tips of the fingers; the hair on the head is about half an inch in length; the child cries lustity on being born, and makes active efforts at sucking any object placed between its lips.
It is certainly quite evident that the individual has life, and therefore the rights of a separate being, from the moment of conception, and that the earliest part of that life is, if anything, fuller of developmental incidents and changes than any of the later periods of existence.
Floating in a membraneous sac filled with amniotic fluid, the minute embryo assumes constantly varying positions and executes movements which, of course, are too delicate to be perceived by the mother, until at about four and a half months it is powerful enough to "leap within its mother's womb" and make its presence felt. This is called "quickening".