Express Pregnancy: How fast can a mother's body adjust?

You all know the story of a women waking up to find herself heavily pregnant with some demon child or somesuch, or the pregnancy spanning a couple of days/weeks rather than the standard 9 months. Commonly referred to as express delivery (warning! tv tropes).

Think of the foetus as suddenly magically / pseudo-scientifically arriving, rather than being grown in the mother. Can it happen overnight as depicted in literature and film or does it have to take some time?

My question is related to Just how fast can the human body naturally adjust to such a sudden change in circumstances, without, um, exploding?

Acceptable answers should focus on

• How fast the mother's body can physically adjust to carrying a 6-9 month foetus
  • I am thinking mainly on how fast the skin and womb can stretch without tearing
• The mother survives the arrival ordeal
  • Dying of normal pregnancy complications is acceptable

Answers should not focus on

• The method/reason why the foetus arrived
• The actual growth/development of the foetus itself
• The birthing labour itself
  • For my purposes the women is not expected to give birth to the arriving foetus.
• The society technology level. I am asking how fast the body can adjust and survive as naturally as possible
  • Unless medical intervention of some sort is essential to survival (I'm thinking painkillers, lots and lots of painkillers)
  • In my story this Express Delivery occurs more than once in different time periods with different tech levels

Uncertainties

• I have handwaved the mother's body chemistry for now, by saying that the women is already pregnant. I haven't figured out if the original pregnancy is as far along as the arriving foetus. Probably not.
  • This needs more development and comments are welcome but not required
  • For now the original foetus should have some chance of surviving as well (not necessarily guaranteed)

Tag Note

Aside from the sudden appearance/disappearance of the foetus, everything else should be as realistic/normal as possible.

posted about 7 years ago

EveryBitHelps‭

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