What is the fourth trimester?
Find out the important post-partum period and how embracing it helps new parents and their newborn in the first 12 weeks after birth
The fourth trimester refers to the first 12 weeks after a baby is born, and it’s sometimes called the postpartum period. It’s a time of significant adjustment and transition for both the baby and the parents – especially the mother – as they adapt to their new life together.
This period of time acknowledges that newborns are not yet fully developed and require a lot of care and attention. Babies need to be held, comforted and fed frequently, and they may experience sleep disturbances, digestive issues and other challenges.
At the same time, mothers are recovering from the physical and emotional demands of pregnancy and childbirth and are learning how to care for their newborn while coping with changes to their body, hormones and lifestyle.
Watch: Olympian Jana Pittman‘s video clip of her post-partum body above.
The fourth trimester is an important period for bonding between the baby and the parents, and for establishing breastfeeding. It is also a time for monitoring the baby’s growth and development, and for seeking medical care if there are any concerns.
Overall, it’s a crucial time for both the baby and the mother, and it is important that they receive the support and care they need to adjust to their new lives together.
Accepting that this isn’t the time to attempt to enforce routines, it’s has proven to be a useful way of communicating the importance of specialised care and support for newborns and their parents during the early postpartum period.
At the end of March 2023, actors Kaley Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey, and Geelong Cats Jeremy Cameron and girlfriend Indiana Puktra entered the fourth trimester
The concept of the fourth trimester was introduced by Dr Harvey Karp, a paediatrician and child development expert, in his 2002 book The Happiest Baby on the Block. Dr. Karp proposed that human infants are born before they are fully developed, and that the first three months of life should be considered an extension of the prenatal period.
He argued that during this time, babies need to be treated as if they are still in the womb, with plenty of swaddling, shushing, swinging, and other soothing techniques to help them adjust to the outside world.
Dr. Karp’s book became a bestseller, and the concept of the fourth trimester gained widespread attention and acceptance among parents, healthcare providers, and researchers. It has since been the subject of numerous studies and articles, and is now widely recognised as an important period of adjustment and transition for both babies and their parents.
