Your week 38 guide

Sucking and swallowing practice supports feeding after birth. Coordinating sucking, swallowing and breathing is genuinely difficult and is one of the main skills that separates a term baby from an early one. Rehearsal in the womb is what allows it to work within an hour of birth.

Shed lanugo, skin cells and swallowed fluid all contribute to meconium. Your baby's first nappies will contain this dark, tarry stool, and its passage in the first day or two is one of the things the newborn checks look for. It looks alarming if you are not expecting it.

Many babies have settled head-down by now, but your clinician confirms the position. Position is assessed by feeling your abdomen and sometimes confirmed by scan if there is doubt. It can occasionally still change this late, which is why it is checked at each visit rather than assumed.

Nesting energy and profound tiredness can alternate, sometimes within a single day. A morning of reorganising cupboards followed by an afternoon of being unable to get off the sofa is a common pattern. Neither state means anything about when labour will start.

Heartburn, leg cramps, back pain, pelvic pressure and poor sleep may continue, and they can wear you down even when birth feels close. You do not have to wait until you are unable to cope before asking for help. Your maternity team can discuss suitable treatment, physiotherapy or practical comfort measures according to the symptom. Severe or persistent pain needs prompt assessment, not an assumption that it is simply late pregnancy.

Contractions may become more noticeable as labour approaches. Distinguishing practice tightenings from early labour is difficult and something many women get wrong, which is expected rather than embarrassing. Real labour contractions become regular, longer, stronger and closer together, and they do not stop when you change position or rest.

Keep your plans flexible and your phone charged. Labour rarely respects a schedule, and being caught mid-commitment with a flat battery is a common and avoidable frustration. Tell people you may cancel at no notice; they will understand.

Review newborn appointments, feeding support and help at home. Newborn checks, screening tests and registration all happen in the first days and weeks, and knowing roughly what is coming prevents them from feeling like an ambush. Confirm who is coming and when, so the first fortnight has some structure. InshaAllah, knowing who is coming and when can bring some calm to the first fortnight.

Keep noticing your baby's normal movement pattern. Movement should not slow down as labour approaches, and the idea that babies move less before birth is a persistent and dangerous myth. Any reduction is a reason to ring your maternity unit immediately.

Be cautious with claims about starting labour: No fruit, spice, drink, herbal preparation or supplement is proven to safely start labour for every woman.

The evidence around foods commonly associated with labour is mixed, and individual circumstances matter a great deal. Speak to your maternity team before deliberately eating large quantities of anything or using a herbal product for this purpose, particularly if you have a pregnancy complication, a restricted diet or a planned caesarean.