Preimplantation Period of Prenatal Develpoment

The first period, the unattached conceptus, takes place during the first week. At the
beginning of the first week, a woman’s ovum is penetrated by and united with a man’s sperm during
fertilization. This union of the ovum and sperm subsquently forms a fertilized egg, or zygot.

During fertilization, the final stages of meiosis occur in the ovum. The result of this process
is the joining of the ovum’s chromosomes with those of the sperm. This joining of chromosome from
both biological parents from a new individual with “shuffled” chromosome. To allow this
information of a new individual, the sperm and ovum when joined have the proper number of
chromosome (diploid number of 46). If both these cells, sperm and ovum. Carired the full
complement of chromosome, fertilization would result in a zygote with two times the proper
number, resulting in severe congenital malformations and prenatal death.

This situation of excess chromosome is avoided with meiosisi, because during their
development in the gonads, this process enables the ovum and sperm to reduce by one half the
normal number of chromosome (to a haploid number of 23). Thus the zygote has recieved half its
chromosomes from the female and half from the male. With the resultant genetic material a
reflection of both biological parents. The photograpic analysis of a person’s chromosome is done by
orderly arrangement of the pairs in a karytype .

After fertilization, the zygote then undergoes mitosis, or individual cell division or cleavage.
After initial cleavage, the solid ball of cell known as a morula. Because of the ongoing process of
mitosis and secretion of fluid by the cells within the morila, the zygote becomes a vesicle known as a
blastocyst, or blastula. The rest of the first week is characterized by further mitocic cleavage, in
which the blastocyst splits into smaller and more numerous cells as it undergoes seccessive cell
divisions by mitosis.

Mitosis takes place during growth or repair and is different from meiosis, which takes place
during reproduction (mitosis is discussed further with cell structurein chapter 7). Mitosis that occurs
during cell division is the self-duplication of the chromosomes of parent cell and their equal
distribution to daughter cell. Thus the result is that the daughter cells have the same chromosome
number and hereditary potential as the parent cell. As it grows by cleavage, the blastocyst travels
from the site where fertilization took place to the uterus.

By the end of the first week, the blastocyst stops traveling and undergoes implantation and
thus becomes embedded in the prepared endometrium, the innermost lining of the uterus. The ideal
implantation site is the back wall of the body of the uterus toward the mother’s spine. After 7 days
cleavage, the trophoblast layer, and a small inner mass of embryonic cells, or embryolast layer.
The trophoblast. The embryoblast layer gives rise to the embryo during the next prenatal period.

Embryonic Period of Prenatal Development

The second period, extends from the beginning of the second week to the end of the eighth
week. Certain physiological processes occur during this period. These physilogicinduction processes
include induction, proliferation, differentiaton, morphogenesis, and maturation. These processes
cause the structure of the implanted blastocyst to become an embrio. These physiological processes
also allow the teeth and associated structures, as well as other organ structures, to develop in the
embryo.

The first physiological process involed in the beginning of most embryological development
is the process of induction, which is the action of one group of cells on another that leads to the
establishment of developmental pathway in the responding tissue. Just what triggers cells to
develop into structures from cellular interactions is poorly understood, but many problems can
result from a failure of initation of certain embryological structures. Induction can also occur in the
later stages of development.

Another type of physiological process that follows induction as well as the other processes is
the dramatic process of proliferation. Which is controlled growth present during most
embryological development. Finally, growt also occurs as a result of an accumulation of cellular
byproducts.

Growth many be interstital, which occurs from deep within a tissue or organ. In contrast,
growth may be appositional, in wich a tissue enlarges its size by the addition of layers on the outside
of structure. Soft tissue growth is usually interstitial, whereas hard tissues such as mature bone or
dental tissues increas by apposition. Some tissues, such as cartilage and growing bone tissue, use
both types of growth to attain their natural size.

In the process of differentiaton, a change occurs in the embryonic cells, which are identical
genetically but become quite distinct structurally and functionally. Thus cells that perform
specialized functions are formed by differentiation during the embryonic period.