fetal

Fetal describes an unborn baby still developing in the womb. A fetal heartbeat, fetal growth, the fetal scan at twelve weeks.

Medicine owns this word: a midwife listens for fetal movement, a scan measures fetal development. Outside the clinic you meet it almost entirely in one phrase — the fetal position, curled on your side with your knees drawn up, which is how people sleep and how they lie when something has gone badly wrong. British writing often spells it foetal; American writing always spells it fetal, and medical journals everywhere have settled on the shorter form.

Phrases it lives in

• the fetal position — curled up on your side with your knees pulled up to your chest