How do the Japanese refer to passage of time in pregnancy?


Though my wife's two pregnancies, I've struggled to describing how much time
has passed. Usually, I just revert to just saying how many months she's been
pregnant, but in English there are other ways of measuring time in relation to
pregnancy that are both more and less precise. I'll list these from least to
most controversial (in my mind).

**Months** - I usually use this form of measurement, because I feel the least
awkward about it. Saying 妊娠8ヶ月 feels alright to me, but is this a normal way
to phrase it?

**Weeks** - Is it normal for a Japanese person to refer to how long an
individual has been pregnant in the number of weeks? (i.e. `She's 34 weeks
pregnant`) For some reason, saying something like 妊娠34週 just feels weird and
clunky to me.

**Trimesters** - Let me define what I mean for any Japanese people unfamiliar
with the concept. In American English, and likely for all English speakers
(though I am not sure), a pregnancy is divided into three parts called
trimesters. The first trimester is from conception to 3 months pregnant, The
second trimester is 4-6 months pregnant, and the third trimester is from 7
months pregnant to birth. Using this unit of measurement, an English speaker
would say something like: `She's in the third trimester.`

Unfortunately, trimester also refers to a school year divided into three parts
rather than the standard two. This makes things harder for me to research, and
I have never been able to refer to find a satisfactory answer. My way around
this is to say:

> 最初/間中/最後の三ヶ月

However, that just feels kind of awkward to me, so I defer to just saying how
many months pregnant she is. I can't but help but feel like I'm missing
something here.

From what I can tell, the concept of trimesters doesn't exist. Is that really
the case, or is there another way that pregnancy is measured that I'm just not
aware of?




I'd say ヶ月 is the most common. 初期、安定期、臨月 etc. is pretty common, too, but it
implies pregnancy is the main theme of that conversation (as opposed to just
mentioning it in passing).

If you say 週 one would assume you are discussing medical topics (it'd be a tad
odd if you use it outside of that context).




I'd say ヶ月 is the most common. 初期、安定期、臨月 etc. is pretty common, too, but it
implies pregnancy is the main theme of that conversation (as opposed to just
mentioning it in passing).

If you say 週 one would assume you are discussing medical topics (it'd be a tad
odd if you use it outside of that context).

