What is the record shortest and longest pregnancy for humans?

supersal1

To date, I believe this is the most premature baby to leave hospital. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11222 I believe babies have survived being born earlier in the pregnancy than this, but have not lived for very long. Finding the world's longest pregnancy is a little trickier. There have been claims for 10 month pregnancies in the past, but this is more than likely due to a mix up in dates. Also, a women might miss a period or two without being pregnant, then fall pregnant, making the pregnancy seem longer than it really is. These days, with modern technology, it is far easier to assess the correct stage of the pregnancy and doctors are quite keen to induce labour, rarely letting the pregnancy go more than two weeks beyond the due date. Jul 14 07, 5:04 PM

Duchey

there is a woman who carried a baby for 42 years. she was pregnant back in about the 1950's or so. when she went into labour and went to the hospital and saw some women screaming in agony she apparently stopped her own labour. this woman forgot about the pregnancy and for years she carried this fetus inside her. it was only years later that she started experiencing some problems and doctors did investigations on her that they discovered this fetus. when they removed it they found that it had calcified. there is a specific name for this type of pregnancy and fetus but i have forgotten. i watched this on the discovery channel on telly. i'm trying to find it on google. if anyone can find it could you post it here please. Jul 14 07, 6:13 PM

Duchey

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1516-31802000000600008&script=sci_arttext as a matter of interest, here is one such "fossilised" fetus. Jul 14 07, 6:21 PM

lanfranco

We'll never know the record for the "shortest pregnancy", since any early miscarriage -- that is, an early spontaneous abortion -- terminates a pregnancy, often without the woman's ever knowing that she was briefly pregnant. Jul 14 07, 6:22 PM