Articles On Pregnancy

Week 1 of your Pregnancy
During week one of your pregnancy, you are actually not yet pregnant. The best way doctors have found to calculate the due date is to begin with the first day of your last period (when actual bleeding with red blood begins) and count forty weeks from that day.

Week 2 of your Pregnancy
The second week, as calculated by doctors and midwives, is the last week of pre-pregnancy. The last day of this week is day fourteen of your menstrual cycle, which is the date on which conception is most likely to take place. There is a lot going on in a woman's body during week two even if there is no actual baby yet.

Week 3 of your Pregnancy
The third week of a pregnancy marks the beginning of the baby. When a baby is conceived it is truly a natural miracle! The egg cell is only viable for about 12-24 hours, after it is released into the fallopian tube. Sperm cells, of which there are millions released during those intimate moments with your husband, can live for several days, so sex does not have to take place right at the time of ovulation (although it does need to be close.)

Week 4 of your Pregnancy
During week four, exciting changes are taking place in the womb of the mother-to-be! Early in this week, the cluster of cells will burrow deeply into the wall of the uterus and become firmly implanted. The ball of cells are known as a "blastocyst" at this stage, and are about the size of a poppy seed.

Week 5 of your Pregnancy
Week five of your pregnancy features a red-letter event - you can test your urine with a home pregnancy test now and it will reveal the truth that you are actually pregnant! Now you can have definite proof, instead of just wondering, hoping, and having funny feelings.

Week 6 of your Pregnancy
By week six, you should know for sure that you are pregnant, and you will probably have developed morning sickness by now. They call it "morning" sickness because it usually happens in the morning, but for many women, it happens at other times. In general, it happens when you have an empty stomach, and consists of nausea, sometimes accompanied by vomiting.

Week 7 of your Pregnancy
During week seven, your baby is growing new brain cells at the amazing rate of 100 every minute. He or she is also growing longer arms and legs, which begin to be defined into the sections of the legs and arms, including shoulders, elbows, and knees.

Week 8 of your Pregnancy
During week eight, your baby is growing about a millimeter a day. Her (or his) fingers and toes are beginning to develop, and she twitches and pokes with those little hands constantly, although you can't feel the movements yet. That is because the baby is only about the size of a kidney bean.

Week 9 of your Pregnancy
As of the ninth week, your baby, which is about an inch long, will have all of its essential body parts, even teeth that will emerge as baby teeth many months from now. Of course, these parts are not at all developed yet. The baby's little heart has all four chambers and valves coming into being now.

Week 10 of your Pregnancy
This week, your baby is beginning to form bones and cartilage. He or she has digestive juices in its stomach and urine forming in its kidneys. Little boys at this stage are beginning to create their own testosterone. The brain is busy developing, which gives the little one a large forehead.

Week 11 of your Pregnancy
During week eleven, your baby will begin to grow rapidly, increasing from just over an inch long at the start of the week to as much as two inches long at the end of the week. He is beginning to look more and more human, although his head is still as large as all the rest of him combined.

Week 12 of your Pregnancy
Your little one's fingernails and toenails begin to grow during the twelfth week. Along with them, her reflexes are beginning to work, making her open and close her hands and clench her eyelids. The baby will move away when your belly is poked, but the feelings are still too small for you to detect.

Week 13 of your Pregnancy
Since forty weeks do not divide neatly into three parts, doctors consider week thirteen to officially begin the second trimester of pregnancy. The baby is now called a fetus, and is past the danger zone of an early miscarriage.

Week 14 of your Pregnancy
By week fourteen, your baby is turning into a real mover and shaker, although it is still unlikely that you will feel the movements. He may have hiccups from time to time, a sensation you will eventually become familiar with.

Week 15 of your Pregnancy
During week fifteen, the big news is that you may feel the first little fluttery movements down in your abdomen - or you may not for a week or two more. Baby's legs are now longer than his arms, and all of his joints are working.

Week 16 of your Pregnancy
Week sixteen can be an exciting time to have an ultrasound done because your little one's gender can be easily determined now. His fingernails are growing and the little bones in the ear that enable hearing are hardening.

Week 17 of your Pregnancy
During week seventeen, your baby will begin to develop fat, growing so that she now will weigh more than the placenta. Babies in the womb can hear by this age, and have been known to appear startled when a loud noise happens outside.

Week 18 of your Pregnancy
In the eighteenth week, your little one weighs about seven and a half ounces, and is about five and a half inches long. She is starting to develop meconium in her bowels. This is the sticky material that will make up the first few dirty diapers of her life.

Week 19 of your Pregnancy
If your baby is a girl, then by nineteen weeks she will already have eggs in her ovaries - the start of your grandchildren! Whether it's a boy or a girl, a baby at nineteen weeks is undergoing much brain development, with the areas of the brain that govern the senses becoming defined.

Week 20 of your Pregnancy
Congratulations! You have made it to week twenty, which is the halfway point of your forty week journey of making a new baby. Your baby has well developed legs now, so it makes sense to measure her from head to toe now, instead of head to bottom.

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