Check out the size of the bump this week:
I have just started reading to our munchkin. Today at work, I read Brown Bear, Brown Bear! Any other good book suggestions, feel free to send them our way!
Check out this link and click on the video of 15-20 weeks to see what the baby looks like and what's happening with his/her body! SO COOL!: http://www.babycenter.com/2_
Your baby's skeleton is changing from soft cartilage to bone, and the umbilical cord — her lifeline to the placenta — is growing stronger and thicker. Your baby weighs 5 ounces now (about as much as a turnip), and she's around 5 inches long from head to bottom. She can move her joints, and her sweat glands are starting to develop.
Seventeen weeks into your pregnancy, or 15 weeks after conception, fat stores begin to develop under your baby's skin. The fat will provide energy and help keep your baby warm after birth.
Your baby is almost certainly listening up by now. In fact, loud noises — the dog barking, the doorbell ringing — will actually startle your baby (and also get him or her used to such noises; for instance, fetuses who regularly hear a dog barking will become babies who sleep right through Fido's outbursts). Your baby's eyes (which have fortunately finished their migration to the front of his or her head) are making small side-to-side movements and can even perceive some light, though the eyelids are still sealed. And since practice makes perfect, your baby is sharpening his or her sucking and swallowing skills in preparation for that first (and second…and third) suckle at your breast or bottle. In fact, most of the survival reflexes that your baby will have at birth are being perfected in utero right now.
And here's some proof that your baby is truly one of a kind (as if you needed any!). Within the next week or so, the pads on your baby's fingertips and toes will become adorned with completely individual swirls and creases (aka fingerprints). 
- By week 17, your baby weighs about 4.97 ounces (140gm) and is 5.12 inches (13cm) long.
- He or she has a much more normal "human" appearance now. She holds her head more erect and her body and limbs are longer in proportion to her head.
- Pads are forming on his tiny fingertips and toes. Soon those individual swirls and whorls will be apparent.
- Her eyes are looking forward now, but they are still firmly closed.
- Meconium (composed of products of cell loss, digestive secretion and swallowed amniotic fluid), is accumulating in the bowel. This black gooey substance will become your baby's first poop!
- The umbilical cord is growing thicker and stronger and continues to rush blood and nutrients to your growing baby.
- If your child is male the prostate begins to develop.
- Her skeleton is transforming from cartilage to bone. The bones remain flexible to make the journey through the birth canal easier.
Many women report that their dream life shifts into high gear during pregnancy. Interestingly, during the second and third trimesters, you spend less sleep time in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the cycle in which most dreams occur. Why, then, all those frequent and vivid dream memories?
It's probably at least in part because you may be interrupting a dream-filled cycle when you wake up to pee, cope with heartburn, leg cramps, restless legs, or a backache, or to shift to a more comfortable position. Waking up during REM sleep makes you more likely to remember your dreams.
It may also be in part that dreams seem so vivid during pregnancy because for most women pregnancy is a time of such heightened emotions — from joy to apprehension and everything in between — but no one really knows for sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment