Yes. It’s not usually a pretty sight. The baby will keep growing. The skin reddens and begins to peel – there is no protective vernix left. Nails grow long, hair grows. The worst case I have seen was that of a mother whose obstetrician refused to accept “her dates”. Because she suffered from incompetent cervix and had had a number of miscarriages, her cervix was closed with a stitch. She could not give birth until that was removed. The reason her Obstetrician was adamant her “dates were wrong” was because ultrasound measurements of the skull deemed her baby to be much younger. Certain measurements (and it was the early days of ultrasound) were deemed to be absolute. She was hysterical by the time the stitch was removed. I have never seen such a bad case of “boiled lobster” again.
For further explanation of “the stitch” – which is not a simple mattress suture, it is called a “cervical cerclage” and looks like this:
You can read a fairly simple but useful article here:
