Excerpt

Pregnancy is a state of profound transformation for mothers, their partners, and families that involves physical, psychological, and relational changes. Physiologically, pregnancy is the process of gestation from conception to birth, when hormonal changes lead to the development of the embryo and fetus (Simkin et al. 2010). Pregnancy can be divided into three three-month periods called trimesters; a full-term pregnancy lasts approximately forty weeks counted from the first day of the woman’s last menstrual cycle (Newman and Newman 2018). Owing to the associated hormonal changes, some women experience symptoms such as fatigue and nausea during the first trimester or throughout pregnancy.