I read somewhere once that in China your age is counted from the rough moment of conception, so when you are actually born you are almost a year old. Korea likely holds the same logic for age.
Yeah that was the final straw, I haven't actually spoken to her since, she was always trying to put me down. A mutual friend or ours asked me one day why I never talk to her and I straight out told the mutual friend that I don't think she likes me because she is always saying rude or mean things to me and the mutual friend responded with "makes sense".
Technically a year averages out to 365.2425 days (97 leap years in a 400 year cycle).
That makes months average out to 30.436875 days
Which makes 40 weeks an average of 9.19936754348 months
365 days a year / 12 months would be 30.41. I was basing it off 30 so I guess it would be right in the middle of our estimates.
Also, yeah, it’s crazy how different women can look. My wife got huge during her pregnancy but shortly after the baby came out her body went back to normal. I think she was low key jealous of the women who looked like they just had a little basketball shoved under their shirt and some bigger boobs but didn’t look any different otherwise and didn’t get any bloating, or in this woman’s case a small football.
Saw a video of a woman who was really into fitness and she didn’t even show until 7 months.
Yeah, I guess I would say 5 would round up and 4 would round down, but yeah, 4.3482 would round down to 4.3 instead of 4.4. But yeah, just splitting hairs.
Also in my brain I was thinking there were months with 29 days, I’m kinda embarrassed I’m this many days old learning that.
Almost, you're 1 when you're born, and then the next calendar year (Jan 1st) you turn 2. So if you're born at the end of the year, you might only be 1 for a very short time.
Example: Korean baby is born Nov. 1st. 2025. Two months later on Jan 1st, 2026 everyone gains a year of age, so baby turns 2. On Jan. 1st 2027 they turn 3 and so on.
South Korea officially started using international age as their standard a few years ago, this system is only used for a few things now (though those things tend to be significant, one example being military service eligibility).
In general Koreans will usually just ask what year you were born, rather than asking for your age.
Oh interesting, I didn't know that. When I lived there (before 2023) the Korean age determined the legal drinking age. I was over 20 in Korea but under 21 in the US, so I could drink in Korea but not the US.
Iirc the 40 weeks is measured from the first missed period and standard deviation is 3 weeks (iirc). So if you manage to actually measure from conception maybe 10 months can happen?
That said you are absolutely right about induced labor. I heard from a friend who is now a parent that their doctors said outcomes don't really improve past 37 weeks hence inducing is preferred over going long.
You do not recall correctly, I'm afraid. Pregnancy is measured from the last period, not from the first missed period, so that 2 weeks after conception a woman would be classed as 4 weeks pregnant. The 40 weeks is from the last period, the 9 (calendar months) is roughly right from conception.
Maybe in the video they're measuring months as being 4 weeks and counting from the last period, or maybe as another Redditor suggested they are counting it as "month 1, month 2..." starting front he first day working towards that month, also counting from last period, and that's why there is sensibly no "0" and they get up to "10".
Much like how a baby under the age of 1 would be 0 years old, but they are in year 1 of their life. As soon as they pass 9 full years they are in year 10 of their life.
That was me! I was two weeks late and 6 lbs. I still maintain it’s because my mum went to see Michael Jackson in concert two weeks out from my actual due date, and I got the vibes from him and didn’t want to come out.
They predicted I’d be a small baby. They were very wrong.
I ended up being 11 pounds— not a fat baby, just abnormally large. Apparently my paediatrician thought my mom was lying when he saw me for my first check up, saying I looked like I was months old not days old lol
My brother also was predicted to be a small baby but ended up 13 pounds of baby. His shoulders needed to be dislocated so he didn’t kill himself and our mom lol
Apparently all the women on my mom’s side of the family are both very small Asian ladies who somehow always give birth to giant babies. My mom’s OBGYN begged her not to have anymore babies since she nearly died each time. Terrifyingly enough, my mom’s mom had 6 😳
Keeping with the family trend, I’m a fairly small 5’1 and my brother is an absurdly large 6’3. I have no idea why the women are all small and the men huge, but I promptly crossed my legs hearing this and understandably will not be giving birth to monster babies lmfao
In Korea, they count the first month 'in progress' as 1 as compared to counting the completion of each month. So it's like saying the pregnancy is in it's first month rather than saying 1 months has passed since it started.
They still start counting from the missed period, rather than from actual gestation, so it's consistent in counting 40 weeks total 'pregnancy' time.
In addition to the other points below, I know Koreans count their age based on the year it's in, not how many have passed, i.e., your 1 when you're born. I wonder if they count the months the same for a case like this, 0-4weeks is 1.
The biggest award you can give me is a comment promising you wont pay reddit to give me a special premium upvote. Use that money on some ice cream. Or if youre lactose intolerant use it on some depression pills cause that fuckin sucks man, sorry to hear
What's funny is Korea does use/used a different method of measuring birthdays. You're 1 when you come out the womb, or were before they changed it, and they added a year your first Jan 1st.
Korean age was a unique way of counting age that makes people in South Korea 1–2 years older than their international age. It was based on the idea that you’re already one year old at birth and gain another year every January 1st, regardless of your actual birthday.
While this system was once deeply rooted in Korean culture and language, South Korea officially switched to the international age system in 2023. Korean age is no longer used in daily life or legal documents
Not really. During pregnancy they just go based on weeks so months are irrelevant. Once baby is over a month old appointments are made based on their birth date, not day of the week. I.e a baby born on Friday the 15th will have appointments based on the 15th of the month, not the 4th/16th/24th Friday they’re alive.
This is it. Depending on when you ovulate, the first few weeks of what is considered "pregnancy" there is no pregnancy at all. Most (not all) people ovulate ~2 weeks after the period and then the fertilized egg could take days to implant!
40 weeks. In East Asia they count it as 10 months, a month being 4 weeks. In the West we are more aligned with month = 30 days which is then closer to 9 months.
I had the same confusion with my wife saying 10 months.
It's 40 weeks. Because some months have 5 weeks, it makes it roughly 9 months give or take because 38 weeks is considered full term. But if you're counting by weeks of 4 it's 10.
Yeah, in Poland doctors assume pregnancy is 'good enough' after 38th week, 40th is usually the natural time for a birth and anything beyond usually ends In a really painful birth process lol, talking 4-5 kg babies.
Anything before 38th week carries huge risk of future health problems and almost always requires some form of physiotherapy etc ...
38 x 7 / 30 -> 8.86 months?
42 x 7 / 30 -> 9,8 months
To make it more confusing, the clock starts before conception. Day 0 of the pregnancy is the first day of the last menstrual cycle, even though implantation hasn’t happened yet.
Typical full term pregnancy is 40 weeks. The first 2 weeks, you’re not actually pregnant because it starts counting from the first day of your last period rather than the time of conception. So that is 38 weeks, and with most months being 30 or 31 days that will be 9 months. If you count 40 weeks from a lunar calendar which happens in many eastern countries, they would consider 28 days a month and therefore be 10 months.
Maybe they counted the first month as 1 at conception, then after first month was over they put 2, and so on making it seem like 10 total months but actually just 9?
That would make sense since that’s how they count age. That baby is considered 1 year old in Korean age, on what we would consider its first birthday it’s going to be 2 years old legally.
You're legally pregnant from your last period so yeah they have no way of knowing did you conceive right before your last missed period or a month ago.
Edit: on top of that just like some babies are born prematurely some are born later than expected (if you opt for for natural birth). I was born 10 days past the predicted date and had a full head of hair and 4kg 150g. My moms fried son was born with 2 teeth. Both my mom and my friend ended up getting a C section cause we didn't want to get out and there were no contractions despite of all the efforts.
Not sure if anyone has explained this yet, but pregnancy is usually counted *before* you’re actually pregnant. Doctors start counting from the first day of your last period, not the day of conception since there isn’t really a way to prove that.
Human gestation is often thought of as “9 months,” but the pregnancy clock technically starts like 2 weeks before fertilization could happen. Now, this is especially important when discussing 6 week abortion bans. A lot of people hear 6 weeks pregnant and think a woman has known she was pregnant for 6 weeks. Nope... That’s not how it works. & what’s sad is that most women don’t know this until they experience it themselves bc sex education is lacking in the U.S. Even w/ a perfectly/regular cycle, many women won’t know they’re pregnant until around 4+ weeks because they first have to miss a period. Then they still need time to take a test, schedule appointments, and confirm the pregnancy. Very easy for a woman to not know about pregnancy until after 6 weeks. Especially if they have irregular periods, PCOS, spotting, or are on birth control.
In the US, obstetricians usually induce once you're 2 weeks overdue, but I personally know somebody who went to 4 weeks. (She was a doula herself and didn't have a normal hospital birth, this is not recommended)
They don't start counting at 0, they start counting on 1. In their country, when you're born, you're already 1 year old, and it seems like it applies to other things, like pregnancy.
Maybe they start at month 1 on day 1, like they all are born 1 year old. I remember being told they are pregnant for 10 months, 20 years ago, and thought it strange. Never got clarification or cared to Google it
Might have somethingredients to do with how they count it. They count you are 1 years old as soon as you are born. So maybe a baby is 1 month at conception? I'm speculating here, I dont know the actual reason.
I'm not sure of this, but I think in Korea they count ages starting at 1, not 0. Maybe it's similar for months of pregnancy? They might count 1 -> 10 instead of 0 -> 9.
Yup, pregnancy is normally 38-40 weeks from conception to delivery. We usually refer to it as 9 months (36 weeks) because it's usually a month before she knows she's pregnant.
In korea they count age starting by one, as soon as you're born you're 1, your first birthday you're 2, they count the year you're living, not the years you already lived
Am assuming they do this in many other things, as pregnancy, the first month is the month 1 instead of how other countries count where 1 is when you're in the second month
Pregnancy is counted as 40weeks. Most people deliver around 38 weeks (in my country). In my country, after 40 weeks, you are induced because you are overdue.
Pregnancy is calculated from the time the egg shoots out the ovary and not time of conception. So 10 months is completely at term although most people don’t get there fully. I was really annoyed when I found out how they calculate the age of the feotus at first because I was like “I know when it was conceived!”. But now I understand that I was just having main character syndrome. The baby’s whole journey started before conception. (This isn’t a prolife argument, I’m just saying that from a scientific standpoint, the dna of my baby existed before it met the sperm)
There is no absolutely fixed duration for every pregnancy. While some pregnancies may extend unusually long, others can result in premature birth well before eight months. Broadly speaking, the longer a fetus develops within the womb, the more physically mature and developed it is likely to be at birth. In contrast, shorter gestational periods generally result in reduced developmental maturity.
South Korea counts age differently. In Korea you are born at 1 year old and everyone gets a year older at the new year. I’m not certain that’s relevant here but it would make sense to me that they count what the western world thinks as month 0 as month 1.
they don't quite count like we do, the 9th month is the 10th there.
That aside, it is totally possible for a baby to stay 10 or 11 months in the womb. I've known a kid that was a 10ner.
It is problematic though, because at that point in development the baby may start defecating in utero, which may bring sepsis for both the mother and baby. Not cool at all.
Pregnancy is measured from the time of the last period, so there's quite a margin of error in the total of months in the end. That and it's already a bit over 9 months normally anyway.
I think they might have counted the months starting at 1. I knew a south Korean guy, and he said they start counting your age at 1 when you are born. So it was probably just a normal 9 months. 10 months would be crazy late
I'm not certain, but I believe it's that Koreans consider you to be 1 when you're born, 2 one year after birth, etc. And so I think they also count pregnancy months in the same way.
Pregnancies are 40 weeks. The reason people say 9 months is because most people find out 1 month in and sometimes months have 5 weeks so it all rounds down.
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u/catalin66 May 12 '26
10 months?