Dr. Catherine Conlon:

Exactly. It depends on hormone levels. Some people might have very low hormone levels and the pregnancy is not detected until the hormone levels get more established and the pregnancy is more advanced. Regardless of the point in a woman's actual bodily cycle when a conception happened, the date of a woman's last menstrual period as she reports it to the doctor is the date from which she is considered to be pregnant. Obviously, there is some movement on it but that is the formal legislative criterion. People were saying to us that they thought they were at seven or eight weeks but when they went to their doctor, they were detected to have been more advanced in pregnancy. Our cut-off point of ten weeks for community care or nine weeks plus six for community-based care is reached very quickly. To then have to go into the hospital system, which as Dr. Duffy's research found has very constrained resources, means that time is moving very quickly, often for logistical reasons as well as because of that way of dating pregnancy.