How does new life begin? How does the body prepare itself?
Reproduction is when living things (e.g. humans, animals, plants) make another version of it.
For girls in puberty pubic and underarm hair grows, breasts grow, ovaries start to release eggs, monthly periods( of bleeding) begin and they have a growth spurt at the start. Were as boys have pubic and underarm hair grow, facial and body hair growth, voice deepens, testes make sperm and they have their growth spurt at the end. Puberty starts in teenage years (9-16) and ends when you’re old normally around 50 years old. Puberty happens so men and women can make babies and reproduce.
The female reproductive system includes a cycle of events called the menstrual cycle. It lasts about 28 days, but it can be slightly less or more than this. The cycle stops while a woman is pregnant.
If the egg cell meets and joins with a sperm cell, it is fertilised. It attaches to the lining of the uterus and the woman becomes pregnant.
Fertilisation is when the sperm and ovum fusing together to create an embryo. When you ovulate you release an egg. Then the egg hangs out in the fallopian tube and waits for sperm. If sperm does come and fertilize the egg then the egg travels from the fallopian tubes and to the uterus where it will attach itself to the uterine wall. Once the egg is released the whole process could take 6-11 days. It takes the egg a few days to get to the uterus and it takes it even longer to implant.
There are 3 stages of pregnancy each is called a trimester. In the first trimester you get your first indication that you might be pregnant. The first thing you notice is your period will not happen. In the first four weeks other than a period not happening there aren’t usually any other symptoms. But due date can be proximately worked out. In the second trimester the baby start moving but you can’t feel it yet. It starts flexing its arms and legs. In week 13 your baby might be able to put a thumb in its mouth. Half way (20 weeks) in to your pregnancy your baby is about 6 inches long and weighs 9 ounces. You probably begin to feel the baby moving. Under the protection of the cervix, your baby’s skin is thickening and developing layers. Your baby now has thin eyebrows, hair on the scalp and well-developed limbs. Your baby is about 15 inches long and weighs about 2 to 3 pounds. Your baby's eyes are beginning to open and close. The colour has been established eye colour may change within the first six months after birth — especially if your baby's eyes are blue or grey-blue at birth. Finally week 40 your baby may be 19 to 21 inches long and weigh 7 to 8 pounds. Don't be alarmed if your due date comes and goes without incident. It's just as normal to deliver a baby a week or two late — or early — than it is to deliver right on time. Amniotic fluid is the fluid that protects the baby in the womb. The placenta is an organ that is rooted to the lining of the womb, which links the baby's blood supply to the mum’s bloods supply, at the same type keeping the two separate. By linking to your blood supply, the placenta carries out functions that your unborn baby can't perform for itself.
Just before you give birth you get contractions. Contractions are short and infrequent and then gradually they will become stronger and closer together. Contractions mean you are about to go into labour. During birth the cervix widens to 10cm and then the baby comes out of the mum’s vagina. The baby and mum will be attached by an umbilical cord; the nurses will cut the cord and wait for the baby to start crying. So they know that it is breathing. Once the baby starts crying they wash all the blood of it and give it to the mum.
When you’re pregnant you should not smoke and take drugs because the mother’s blood goes really close to the babies’ blood allowing things to pass through. The mother should not go on a diet because the mother feeds the baby with nutrients it needs to grow through the placenta. So if the mother went on a diet the baby wouldn’t get everything it needed to grow.
Genetic information is passed from one generation to the next because the sperm and egg cells have the father and mother genes in them and they join together to make another person with the half the mums genes and half the dads genes.
Identical twins have the same features because it is 1 egg cell and 1 sperm that have split in half to make 2 babies.
The sperm is adapted to its environment because it has a tail to swim with. The egg is adapted because its small and it has got a cell wall to protect it.
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