REPRODUCTION

Reproduction- how babies are made

When girls and boys reach puberty, their bodies start to change and become more mature. From this time, if a male and a female have sexual intercourse (often called 'making love', or 'sleeping with someone'), it is possible that the girl could get pregnant, it means a  baby could start to grow.

The female reproductive system

The human female reproductive system is made up of ovaries, egg tubes, uterus, cervix and vagina. All these are a vital part of the reproduction process.

 

 

Parts:

 

 

The male reproductive system

The male reproductive system includes the testes, prostate glands, sperm ducts, urethra and penis.



Sperm duct
During mating, sperm cells released pass through the sperm ducts

 

 

How a baby is started

Sperm are the male 'seeds' that contribute to starting a new life - living sperm look a lot like tadpoles (under a microscope).

When sperm swim up the vagina through the cervix, into the uterus and then into the fallopian tubes of the female. These sperm are looking for an ovum (or egg) to fertilise. Once one sperm has fertilised the ovum, no other sperm can get in.

For the sperm it's like a race and there is only one winner.

 

 

What happens next

This fertilised ovum immediately divides into two cells, these cells then divide again and again over the next couple of days as the cluster of cells makes its way to the uterus (womb). Here it is planted in the lining of the uterus and continues dividing its cells to make billions of new cells. The female is now pregnant.

 

Inside the uterus (womb)

The place where the embryo plants itself is inside the uterus. The baby starts to grow, and other tissue grows into a placenta.

During pregnancy (the time when the baby is growing in mum's uterus), the placenta provides oxygen from the air that mum breathes, and nutrients from the food she eats.

Some of the nutrients from what mum eats or drinks, and oxygen from the air she breathes, goes through the umbilical cord to the fetus.

The umbilical cord is a soft 'bendy' tube from the placenta to the navel of the fetus.

There is a sac (like a bag of thin skin) filled with fluid protecting the skin of the developing baby. The baby can move around safely inside the mother for 9 months until he or she is ready to be born into our world.