Pregnancy Week by Week ’ category archive

First 6 Weeks of Pregnancy

July 18, 08 by admin

null

Your Baby’s Progress

Once it has implanted, the embryo secretes chemicals that have two
functions. First, they signal to your body that the embryo has arrived, and
this triggers a number of changes in your body: Your ovulation cycle stops,
the mucus in your cervix thickens, your uterine wall softens, and your breasts
begin to grow. Second, your immune system is suppressed so that the
embryo is not treated as foreign and rejected, but is allowed to grow.

In addition, an outer layer of the blastocyst develops into a protective cocoon

around the embryo. This cocoon will create the rudiments of the placenta
and the support system in which the embryo will grow- the amniotic sac (the
watery balloon in which it will float), the chorion (a safety cushion around the
amniotic sac), and the yolk sac (which will manufacture blood cells until the
liver takes over). The chorion then grows finer like projections, the chorionic
villi, which the cocoon burrows firmly into your uterine lining.

The Cells specialize

Throughout these early weeks, the embryo’s cells become more specialized.
There are now three layers of them, each destined to create different organs
of the body. The innermost layer forms a primitive tube that will later
develop into the lungs liver, thyroid gland, pancreas, urinary tract, and
bladder. The middle layer will become the skeleton, muscles (including the
heart muscle), testes or ovaries, kidneys, spleen, blood vessels, blood cells,
and the deepest layer of skin, the dermis. The outer layer will provide the
skin, sweat glands, nipples (and breasts, if it is a girl), hair, nails, tooth
enamel, and the lenses of the eyes. These three cell layers differentiate to
create an entire human body.

The Embryo’s Support System

The villi of the growing placenta intermingle with the maternal blood vessels
of the uterine wall in such a way that they eventually become surrounded by
lakes of blood. Maternal blood flows in and around these spaces, and
because it is divided by only a cell or two from fetal blood, exchange of
nutrients and waste between fetus and mother can occur in this blood space.
The placenta is a hormone factory pumping out hormones, such as human
chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), that are designed to support a healthy
pregnancy.

Until the sixth week, the embryo’s blood cells are supplied by the yolk sac;
after the end of the third week, blood circulation is pumped by the baby’s
own heart.

No Comments Posted in Pregnancy Week by Week

Up to 14 Weeks of Pregnancy

July 18, 08 by admin

Fourteen weeks after your LIMP, all of your baby’s major organs have formed
and his intestines are sealed in the abdominal cavity. He now starts to grow
and mature.

Your Baby’s Progress

By the eleventh week of pregnancy, your baby is recognizable as a human
being, and he is now called a fetus (offspring) rather than an embryo. His
head is very large compared to the rest of his body; by 14 weeks it will be
about one-third of his whole length.

His eyes are completely formed, although the eyelids are still developing and
remain closed. His face, too, is completely formed. His trunk has
straightened out and the first bone tissue and ribs appear. The fingers and
toes have nails, and some hair may have grown.

His external genital organs are now growing, and often the gender of the
baby is discernible on a sonogram. Internally, his heart beats between 110
and 160 times per minute and his circulatory system continues to develop.
The fetus swallows amniotic fluid and excretes it as urine. His sucking reflex
is establishing itself– his lips purse, his head turns, and his forehead wrinkles.

The muscles he will use after birth for breathing and swallowing are also
being exercised. In fact, by the end of this month your baby will have
discovered movement. He now begins to move vigorously, though you
probably won’t be able to feel his movements until the fourth month.

Blood Cell Production

While your baby will continue to rely on the placenta for nourishment,
oxygen, and the clearance of waste until he is born, a system of blood cell
formation that will eventually support independent life is essential. Toward
the end of this month, the yolk asc becomes superfluous as its task of
producing blood cells is taken over by your baby’s developing bone marrow,
liver, and spleen.
His Support system

The placenta is developing very quickly, ensuring that there is a rich network
of blood be vessels to provide your baby with vital nourishment. Now the
layers thicken and grow until the chorion and membranes cover the entire
inner surface area of the uterus. The umbilical cord is now completely
mature and consists of three intertwined blood vessels encased in a fatty
sheath.

The large vein carries nutrients and oxygen-rich blood to the fetus, while the
two smaller arteries carry waste products and oxygen poor blood from the
fetus to the placenta. The umbilical cord is coiled like a ring because the
sheath is longer than the blood vessels. This allows him plenty of room to
man oeuvre without the risk of damaging his lifeline.

No Comments Posted in Pregnancy Week by Week

Up to 18 Weeks of Pregnancy

July 18, 08 by admin

The second trimester starts at the 14th week of pregnancy. Your baby is
steadily growing, and if you have a scan at this time it is possible to discern
the baby’s sex. If it is felt necessary, around this time you will be offered
various tests to rule out abnormalities. The length of the femur will be
measured, as well as the diameter of the head; this latter measurement will
be used to confirm the EDD.

Your Baby’s Progress

She is looking more human, with legs longer than arms and the parts of her
legs in proportion. The skeleton continues to produce bone and those parts
with sufficient calcium can be seen on X-ray.
The fetus now contains the same number of nerve cells as an adult. The
nerves from the brain begin to be coated in a layer of protective fat (myelin).
This is an important step in their maturation because it facilitates the
passage of messages to and from the brain. Connections between nerves
and muscles are established so that your baby’s well-formed limbs can move
at the joints when muscles are stimulated to contract and relax. Now that her
arms are long enough, her hands can grasp each other if they touch
accidentally, and she can form fists.

However, movements are not yet under the control of the brain. Nor do they
register with you at first because the fetus is not big enough to activate nerve
endings on the uterine wall. Second-time mother tend to feel fetal activity
sooner. The fetus’s external genital organs acquire a more distinctive
appearance. A girl’s vaginal plate, the precursor to her vagina, is clearly
developing, and a boy’s testes are at the deep inguinal ring and well on their
way to descending into the scrotum.

Her Support System

The placenta is producing the increasing amount of chorionic gonadotropin,

estrogen, and progesterone that are needed throughout pregnancy. It also
produces an assortment of other hormones that maintain the health of the
uterus and play an essential part in the growth and development of the
mother’s breasts in preparation for lactation.

The placenta forms a barier against infection, although not against viruses
such as rubella (German measles) and AIDS or poisons such as alcohol and
nicotine. By the end of the 16th week, the placenta has grown to about half
an inch (1cm) in thickness and three and a half inches (7-8 cm) across.

Growth will continue until at term it reaches a weight of 11 pounds (500gm),

a thickness of an inch and a half (3cm), and a diameter of 8 to 10 inches (20-
25cm). It is firmly attached to the uterine wall (usually the upper part).
No Comments Posted in Pregnancy Week by Week

Up to 22 Weeks of Pregnancy

July 18, 08 by admin

Your baby has sufficiently increased in size at this time to have developed a
nervous system and muscles capable of allowing him to move. Because he is
still so small, he can swim up and down and be in any position at any time.

Your Baby’s Progress

Starting now, form 19 weeks after your LMP, your baby’s rapid growth rate
(but not weight gain) starts to slow down, and he matures in other ways. He
begins to build up his defence systems. A sheath begins to form around the
nerves in his spinal cord to protect them from possible damage. He also has
his own primitive immune system, with which he can partially defend himself
against some infections.

To produce body heat and maintain his temperature, your baby needs
specialized fatty tissue. This is provided by a substance known as brown fat,
which started to form during the fourth month. Now, deposits of brown fat
begin to build up in areas of his body such as his neck, chest, and crotch.
This will continue until term. One of the reasons that premature babies are
so vulnerable is that they have insufficient amounts of brow fat and so are
unable to keep themselves warm.

His skin will continue to grow, although it will be red and wrinkled because
there is so little fat underneath it. From this month on, he becomes
increasingly plumper. The baby’s sebaceous glands become increasingly
plumper. The baby’s sebaceous glands become active and produce a waxy,
greasy substance known as the vernix caseosa, which provides his skin with a
protective coating during its long immersion in the amniotic fluid.

Your baby’s body is also covered with fine hair called lanugo. As yet, no one
is quite sure of its purpose, but it may help to regulate his body temperature
or it may be there to hold the protective vernix caseosa in place.

His Movements

As his nerve fibers become connected and his muscle development and
strength increase, his movements are more purposeful and coordinated. He
embarks on his own athletic program- stretching, grasping, turning - which
builds up his muscles, improves his motor ability, and strengthens his bones.
These movements can make your abdomen sore.

Sex Organs

A boy’s scrotum is solid at this stage. A girl’s vagina starts to become hollow,
and her ovaries contain about 7 million ova, which will decline to
approximately two million by the time she is born. By the time she reaches
puberty, 200, 000 to 500, 000 ova will be left, and she will release only 400
to 500 of these during her adult life - approximately one per month.

No Comments Posted in Pregnancy Week by Week

Up to 26 Week of Pregnancy

July 18, 08 by admin

Your baby is growing taller and stronger, while her movements are becoming
more complex. She is also showing signs of sensitivity, awareness, and
intelligence. A baby is legally viable if born after 24 weeks of pregnancy and
may survive with specialized neonatal intensive care.

Your Baby’s Progress

She is still red and skinny, but she will soon start to put on weight. Any
extensive wrinkling of the skin is caused by a lack of subcutaneous fat and a
relative abundance of skin. Her body is growing faster than her head, and by
the end of this month her proportions are approximately those of a newborn.
Her arms and legs have their normal amount of muscle, her legs and body
are in proportion, and the center of her bones is beginning to harden.

The lines start to appear on the palms of her hands. The brain cells she will
use for conscious thought now start to mature, and she begins to be able to
remember and learn (in one experiment, babies in the uterus were trained to
kick in response to a specific vibration). The genitals are now completely
differentiated; if the baby is a boy, testosterone-producing cells in the testes
increase in number.

Hearing

Your baby can hear sound frequencies that are beyond your range; she
moves more in response to high frequencies than to low ones and moves her
body in rhythm with your speech. Starting this month, she will respond to
drum beats by jumping up and down. Some mothers report having to leave
concerts because their unborn babies would not settle down.

If she hears a piece of music frequencies she may discover that when she is
grown up it is familiar to her- even if she can’t remember ever hearing it.
Some musicians have said that they “knew” unseen pieces of music and later
discovered that their mother played them during pregnancy. She can also
learn to recognize her father’s voice from this month onward.

A baby whose father talks to her while she is in the uterus can distinguish
father’s voice in a roomful of people immediately after she is born and will
respond to it emotionally for example, if she is upset, she may stop crying
and calm down.

Breathing

Inside her lungs, air sacs are forming in ever-increasing numbers. They will
continue to increase until eight years after birth. Around them, the blood
vessels that will help her absorb oxygen and expel carbon dioxide are
multiplying.

In addition, her nostrils have now opened, and she is beginning to make
breathing motions with her muscles, so her system will have plenty of
breathing practice before she is born.

No Comments Posted in Pregnancy Week by Week

Up to 30 Weeks of Pregnancy

July 18, 08 by admin

Your baby is now so big that when your doctor or midwife gives you an
abdominal examination, his position can be assessed. This is the last month
he can turn a somersault.

Your Baby’s Progress

Great changes take place in the nervous system this month. The brain grows
larger (to fit inside the skull, it has to fold over and wrinkle up until it looks
like a walnut), and the brain cells and nerve circuits are all fully linked and
active. In addition, a protective fatty sheath begins to form around the nerve
fibers, just as a similar sheath formed earlier around the spinal cord, and this
fatty myelin will continue to develop until early adulthood. As a result, nerve
impulses can travel faster and your baby becomes capable of increasingly
complex learning and movement. Your baby starts preparing himself for
birth. (If he were to be born at this stage, he would have an excellent chance
of survival.

Even though such a baby may have some breathing problems and difficulty
in keeping himself warm, modern special-care facilities should help him
thrive.) Some fat is beginning to appear underneath his skin, which smoothes
out, loses its wrinkles, and becomes more rounded. His coat of hairy lanugo
may diminish to a patch on his back and shoulders. The membranes that
sealed and protected his eyes during their growth will, by the beginning of
this month, have fulfilled their function, as his eyes are now fully formed and
allowed his eyes to open. He will also continue to develop his swallowing and
sucking skills.

Breathing

He has now fully developed his mature breathing rhythm, and the air sacs in
his lungs start to prepare for the first breath he will take in the world outside
the uterus. They line themselves with a coating of special cells and a fluid
(surfactant) the will prevent them from collapsing.

Movements

Over the course of this month, he will find he has less room to move around
and will gradually give up moving so much. He will wriggle uncomfortably if
you are in a position that doesn’t suit him.

Orientation

During his weeks of “gymnastics practice,” he has done more than increase
his muscle tone- he has developed the ability to orient himself in space. He
will probably continue to lie in your uterus with his head upward during this
month. However, if he is maturing very fast, he may turn upside down and
settle into place for delivery, or engage, somewhat earlier than usual.

This is more common in first-born babies.

No Comments Posted in Pregnancy Week by Week

Up to 34 Weeks of Pregnancy

July 18, 08 by admin

Thirty- four weeks after your LMP, your baby is perfectly formed. All her
proportions are exactly as you would expect them to be at birth. Still, she
has some maturing to do and some weight to gain before she is ready to be
born.

Your Baby’s Progress

Her organs are now almost fully mature except for her lungs, which are still
not completely developed although they are secreting increasing quantities
of surfactant, which will keep them from collapsing once she begins to
breather air. She can make strong movements that can be felt on the
surface of your abdomen. Nearly all of the babies born at this stage survive.

Her skin, nails, and hair

Her skin is now pink rather than red, owning to the deposits of white fat
underneath it. Fat deposits build up under her skin in order to provide energy
and regulate her body temperature after she is born. The protective vernix
caseosa that covers her skin is very thick. Her fingernails reach the ends of
her fingers, but her toenails are not yet fully grown. She may have quite a lot
of hair n her head.

Her eyes

Her irises can now dilate and contract. They already contract in response to
bright light and also to enable her to focus, although she will not need to
develop this skill until after she is born. She can close her eyelids, and she
has begun to blink.

Her position

Some babies assume the head-downward positon about now, but there is still
plenty of time- most engage after 36 weeks. Although most babies do turn
on their own, she may remain in the breech (bottom down) position until
birth.

Her Support System

This month the placental layers may start to thin. To make estrogen, the
placenta converts a testosterone like hormone that is produced by your
baby’s adrenal glands. By now these glands have reached a size equivalent
to those of an adolescent, and every day they produce ten times as much
hormone as an adult’s adrenal glands.

They will shrink rapidly after birth. The amniotic sac, or bag of water,
contains a large amount of fluid, most of which is the baby’s urine; she can
void as much as one pint of urine daily. Excess vernix caseosa, nutrients,
and products necessary for lung maturation are also present. The umbilical

No Comments Posted in Pregnancy Week by Week

Up to 40 weeks of Pregnancy

July 18, 08 by admin

It can be difficult to calculate the exact date of conception although most

women have their fertile period about 14 days after the first day of their last
menstrual period. Because of this, doctors set an artificial but convenient
time scale of 40 week calculate from the LMP, although a fetus actually
reaches “full term,” meaning it is fully developed, after about 38 weeks.

Your Baby’s Progress

During this month your baby will usually shed almost all of the lanugo from
his body. There may be some small patches left in odd places and perhaps
some in his body creases.

His skin is smooth and soft, and there is still some vernix caseosa left on it
(mostly on his back), which will help his passage down the birth canal. He
may be almost chubby at birth. His fingernails are long and may have
scratched his face; they will need to be trimmed after birth. He may be
almost chubby at birth.

His fingernails are long and may have scratched his face; they will need to be
trimmed after birth. His eyes are blue, although they may change in the
weeks after birth; when he is awake they are open. In these last weeks, your
baby produces increasing amounts of a hormone called cortisone from his
adrenal glands. This helps his lungs to mature in readiness for his first
breath.

Meconium

His intestine is filled with a dark green, almost black substance called
meconium. It is a mixture of the secretions from his alimentary glands,
lanugo, pigment, and cells form the wall of his bowel. It will be the first bowel
movement he will pass after birth (or he may pass it during delivery).

Immune system

His own system is still immature, so to make up for this he receives

antibodies from you via the placenta, which will protect him against anything
for which you have antibodies, such as flu, mumps, and German measles.
After he is born, he will continue to receive such antibodies through your
breast milk.

His support system

The placenta now measures eight to ten inches (20-25cm) in diameter and is
just over one inch (3cm) thick, thus creating a wide area for the exchange of
nourishment and waste products between yourself and your baby. There are
now more than two pints (1 litre) of water in the amniotic sac.

The hormones produced by the placenta are stimulating your breasts to swell
and fill with milk. They also cause swelling in your baby’s breast, whether it
is a boy or a girl, which will recede after birth. If your baby is a girl, the
cessation of these same hormones following delivery may cause her to have
light bleeding from her vagina (like a period) a few days after her birth.

No Comments Posted in Pregnancy Week by Week