Talk:Timeline of prenatal development

Name

This article was previously titled List of changes by weeks of gestational age. I changed the title to Timeline of prenatal development. The original title was problematic because the subject matter was vague. It could cover changes in the pregnant woman. Also, both the gestational age and developmental age are given (the latter is put in parentheses). However, my title may not be the best either. The word timeline, when used on wikipedia, seems to exclusively deal with historical events. Perhaps "chronology" might be a better word to use? Any other ideas. I like the idea of X of prenantal development because it clearly references the subject matter, and uses the naming convention established by the parent article. So any ideas for a name change? Is the current name acceptable?-Andrew c ^[talk] 21:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

It's no big deal to me, but I think "timeline" is better than "chronology". Wikipedia says that "chronology, as the science of locating historical events in time, is part of the discipline of history."[1] In contrast, "Timelines describe the events that occurred before another event, leading up to it, causing it, and also those that occurred right afterward that were attributable to it."[2] Thus, timelines need not be historical, and Wikipedia includes a bunch of fictional timelines.[3]

As far as splitting this off from the prenatal development article, I have no huge objection, though I probably would have left it as it was, since the timeline is the central feature of prenatal development.

I would again like to suggest using a single uniform standard of time here, for the sake of simplicity. "Gestational age" is more appropriate in an article about pregnancy that includes info about maternal events.Ferrylodge 01:33, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I too am curious why this article was spun out in the first place. Was the parent article unreasonably long? Perhaps we could get the article creator to comment here. As for "timeline". The articles in Category:Timelines seem to all be about historical instances, as opposed to sequential, reoccurring events. But I guess that means we don't put this article in that category then.-Andrew c ^[talk] 02:05, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Although I really think the article should remain, I have no other comment regarding the best name of it. Actually, I think it's working as it is, I mean, readers see what the article is about when they start reading it. Mikael Häggström 16:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep separate or merge with prenatal development

I separated this page from prenatal development, not because that one was unreasonably long, but to make it like a portal to all aspects of prenatal development. A timeline like this is only one way to present it, another one is by each organ individually. Therefore, I say they are to be kept separate, and that a summary of this list is created on that page. Eventhough it isn't vey long now, it has potential to become really huge, and I think it is good to prepare for that already now. Mikael Häggström 16:37, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I made a summary of this article in prenatal development, so it now looks like the idea I had when I first moved the article to this page. I know it would have created less confusion if it was done right away. Anyhow, I find both that and this article much more potential to expand now, so personally I vote to keep them separate. Mikael Häggström 17:32, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Split to embryogenesis and fetal development

Although some major reorganizations have been made, I don't think it impedes another one to be made, bacause digital text is pretty easy to move. I think the information on this page should be split and transfered to the main articles of embryogenesis and fetal development. The latter article needs to be created as a new one. This also enables the merging of the development part in fetus, which now is a redundant duplicate of a lot of information already present in this page. Thus, consistency would be made, with prenatal development being the intro to all stages, fertilization, embryogenesis and fetal development, without this page being an appendix to that system. Anybody disagrees? Mikael Häggström 10:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I disagree. You recently created this article, and you are now proposing to eliminate it while creating another article called "fetal development". I suggest that we revert to the set of articles that existed before this article was created, and then try to form a consensus about how to proceed. I disagree with the creation of this article, and I disagree with creation of a new "fetal development" article.

Are you aware that the article on "prenatal development" was previously titled "fetal development"? It was renamed to avoid confusion. The two terms "prenatal development" and "fetal development" are generally considered synonymous in textbooks, even though the fetal stage begins at two months; the term "fetal development" typically includes development of the embryo also. Thus, our renaming eliminated confusion.

Also, I don't think that there is anything wrong with having some info about development at the fetus article, either summarizing what is at another article or vice versa. The development info at the fetus article is currently appropriate, and I disagree with removing it. Some editors have even suggested expanding it:

"I'd suggest developing Zygote, Embryo, and Fetus to include more detailed information on these stages, and then using fetal [i.e. prenatal] development as a top-tier hub to summarize those sub-articles (in this case, placing all the 'eggs' in one basket would be a good thing)."

I hope we can restore things to how they were before this article was created, or at least not make further changes and not create further articles on this subject, before there is consensus. Thanks.Ferrylodge 12:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I get your points, and agree that consensus needs to be made before any changes. Feel free to delete the summaries of this article I made in Prenatal development if necessary, because all that is to it is found in this one too. Mikael Häggström 09:29, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. Both of you agree that this article shouldn't exist, and that it should instead be split up based on fetus vs. embryo. Where you disagree is what articles this content should be moved to. FL would like to split this content between embryo and fetus, and MH would instead like to split the content between embryogenesis (or presumably, more fittingly Human embryogenesis) and a proposed fetal development (or what about human fetal development?) Here are my thoughts. I do not believe we need another article created. However, I do not believe this article needs to be split up. I think it is good to have the whole duration of human pregnancy in one place, in a timeline format, so I believe this current article is valid (and shouldn't be deleted, nor split up, but kept together in one place). I also believe summarizing the key points of this timeline at prenatal development was also a good thing to do. I believe we should start some sort of centralized discussion to get a general direction for these articles. Right now some topics have articles exclusively dealing with humans, and others combine humans with other animals. We have embryo, embryogenesis, and Human embryogenesis while on the other side of things we only have fetus. Either we should merge articles on the embryo side, or create articles on the fetus side. We should solicit the input of other editors at a more visible locations. I have started a post at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biology#Embryo.2FFetus.2Fprenatal_development_etc and we could consider a RfC if we don't get many replies in a few days.-Andrew c ^[talk] 14:09, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Since you've started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biology#Embryo.2FFetus.2Fprenatal_development_etc, I'll continue it there instead of here. But just to correct one thing: I do not have anything against a prenatal development article that provides info about the whole duration from fertilization to birth. The question is more directed toward whether that stuff at prenatal development should summarize what is elsewhere, or instead should be summarized elsewhere (I favor the former rather than the latter).Ferrylodge 14:50, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Splitting

The issue here is whether prenatal development is now long enough to require splitting off the timeline. See Wikipedia:Summary_style. I think not. Does anyone disagree?Ferrylodge 04:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I partly agree, and can accept such a merge. Still, I find it a pleasant page to go to separately, but I agree that it's not really very long. Anyhow, if it be merged, it should be split into the embryonic and fetal sections, where there are summaries now. Earlier it was inconsistent with the rest of the article. Mikael Häggström 05:11, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, we'll merge as you suggest. Then someday if the article gets too long, then we'll consider splitting at that time.Ferrylodge 07:34, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I too support a merge. This article is around 12kB, and so is the prenatal development article. Since there is some redundancy, I anticipate the merged articles to be around 20-22kB, which is still not too long. I agree with Mikael that it's neat to have a page with it all in one place, however, there are already a lot of articles on this topic, and merging some down makes sense to me to help clean things up.-Andrew c ^[talk] 13:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)