Study of Dwarves

Pregnancy

A/N: Hey! Long time, no see! I was recently requested that I'd add something about pregnancy into my insight of Dwarves, and it seemed like a great idea, so here it is. :)

So, in my head (and probably in many others' as well) Dwarven pregnancy is quite similar to human pregnancy, because all (main) races in Middle Earth are described as mostly humanoid. That way it's also easier for us to have all these Bagginshield and dwarf/OC stories with the OC from another race where the couple will have these cute little dwelflings or dwobbits or... is there a word for human-dwarf baby? Dwuman? Anyway, the point is, this little theory splash is based on human pregnancy and child development, with some tweaks to make it Dwarven. So if you were expecting that dwarrowdams would lay rock-like eggs from which the dwarflings would then hatch, then I'm sorry to disappoint you. The first, and most obvious, tweak is the length; since Dwarves live considerably longer than humans, it'd only make sense that Dwarven pregnancies would take longer, too. Now, LotR Wiki says that Dwarves "often live up to 250 years", but since our dear tattoo-head Dwalin bested that number with nearly a full century, I dare say that the truth would be somewhere closer to 300 years. If we assume that the average man lives up to 85 years, that'd mean that Dwarves live approximately 3,5 times longer. Just imagine how many kids Dwarves could have in their lifetime if making one child took only forty-odd weeks. They'd be like rabbits! :D

So... back to basics.

The menstrual cycle: The Dwarven longevity would affect to this little nuisance too. Human cycle is around a month, give or take a few days, so that'd mean twelve chances to get pregnant per a year. I'll cut this number into a quarter for Dwarves, meaning that the menstrual cycle for Dwarves would be roughly four months. The Dwarven cycle begins with 2,5 weeks long bleeding and the ovulation happens roughly two months into the cycle, with the window for high chance of pregnancy around a week before and a week after the ovulation. After that window has closed it'd take roughly eight weeks before the next cycle.

The cycle starts around the time the dwarf girl turns 40; simply put, when she becomes a "teenager". Traditionally acceptable time to have children is from 90 to 150, and the "Dwarven menopause" happens somewhere around 200 years of age, give or take a decade.

The actual pregnancy: The length of Dwarven pregnancy lies at solid 21 months, divided into three thirds, each seven months long (I hesitate to call them trimesters because the word implies to a time period of three months and now we have seven). This means that Dwarven pregnancy is almost 2,5 times longer than the human counterpart. I'm not going into specific details of embryonic and fetal development, since there're no means to monitor these things in Middle Earth. Also, I'm no doctor, so my knowledge of that would only include what little was taught on biology lessons in school and reading things from internet.

1st third: Most obvious hints about the pregnancy at this stage are morning sickness and mood swings. Morning sickness is the first sign, starting a couple of weeks into the pregnancy and usually relents before the end of the first third. Mood swings come into picture after about three months. The point where the chances of miscarriage begin to diminish is around two months into the pregnancy.

Cultural note: During the first third, the pregnancy is usually very hushed-up thing, meaning that it's very common that the only people knowing about the pregnancy are the parents-to-be and the healer who has confirmed the pregnancy. The reason for this is to protect the mother and the child by not painting a target on them. Usually this silence is not breached, but if the mother or the father is especially close with someone in their family (usually a sister or a brother), they might learn of the pregnancy before others. Even in these cases, though, the parents-to-be would usually wait until the two-months-point before telling. The grandmothers-to-be would usually notice the pregnancy before it's announced because they've gone through the same, but confronting the mother-to-be about the pregnancy would be considered of very poor taste.