New England Sun-Times

14 weeks pregnant What to expect this week What's happening in week 14 You are now in your second trimester and your baby is beginning to be a real 'individual' – even down to gaining their own unique set of fingerprints! Your baby at week 14 Size-wise, your little one is around 8cm long or around half a banana in length, weighing 42 grams and growing bigger and stronger every day. Your baby’s arms are now in proportion with their body, but their legs still have a bit more growing to do until your baby is fully in proportion. Your baby is really starting to take on the look of a real little person now, with their hair and eyebrows beginning to grow, and they’re starting to develop their own set of fingerprints in place on their tiny fingers! They’ll be making the most of these tiny digits and might now be able to suck their thumb. Not only that, brain impulses have them squi...

13 weeks pregnant What to expect this week What's happening in week 13 Week 13 is here, and you are probably sharing the news of your pregnancy with anyone who'll listen! Your baby at week 13 Your baby is around 7.5cm long and about the size of an egg, weighing about 25g. Even at this small size they’ve already learned some party tricks – kicking their legs, turning their head – even swallowing, yawning and hiccupping! How amazing is it that they are so active and developed, yet so tiny? In week 13, your baby’s skeleton is starting to develop with the clavicle (collarbone) and femur (thigh bone) developing first. Along with the skeleton, their organs continue to grow with their stomach and bowel taking shape as well as their vocal chords (which will get a lot of use in a few months’ time!) Your baby’s lungs are also developing and in week 13 they’ll start to take their first few ‘b...

12 weeks pregnant What to expect this week What's happening in week 12 You are in the final week of your first trimester and your baby has changed beyond all recognition from week one! Your baby at week 12 Your tiny baby is now a compact 6cm in length, and fully formed – the next stage of their development is to grow larger and practise sucking and breathing motions.. It’s likely you’ll see your baby for the first time this week at your dating scan , though it’s unlikely you will be able to get a reliable sexing just yet. They are moving around a lot at this stage, but you still won't be able to feel this for a while as they still have a lot of space to bob about in. Their eyelids remain fused shut at week 12 (they will open at around week 27) and have moved to their final position on the front of the head (rather than the side), while their little wrists and elbows bend as they move ar...

11 weeks pregnant What to expect this week What's happening in week 11 At 11 weeks, your baby is starting to look like a real little person and you might even have the tiniest hint of a bump! Your baby at week 11 It won't be long before your baby is fully formed even at only 4cm long, and will then spend the rest of the pregnancy growing (as will you!). They already have little fingernails in place and their hands will soon start to open and close. Though it’s still too soon to tell the gender by ultrasound, your tiny baby will be starting to form testes or ovaries. At 11 weeks your baby’s head is already quite well developed and all the bones in their face are now present. Around this time the ears will have migrated closer to their final location, the tongue and palate will be present in the mouth and there will be open nasal passages at the tip of their nose. Meanwhile the hair foll...

9 weeks pregnant What to expect this week What's happening in week nine You are now nine weeks into your pregnancy – so what's happening with you and your baby now? Your baby at week nine As you enter week 9 your baby will transition from the embryonic stage to the foetal period. At this point they’ll be about one inch long and the size of a large bean or olive. Your baby's organs, nerves and muscles are all starting to function now and although you won’t be able to feel it, their tiny heart is now beating strong enough to be picked up by ultrasound devices like a Doppler, although this isn’t always possible depending on the position of your baby in the uterus. Their ears are also starting to develop, and their eyelids are now in place but will be fused shut until week 26 . Meanwhile their little fingers and toes are starting to change from being titchy buds into actual digits. Y...

8 weeks pregnant What to expect this week What's happening in week eight Two months into your pregnancy and you are no doubt now feeling lots of changes. Your baby at week eight At eight weeks your baby is around two centimetres long now – still minuscule, but growing and developing every day. At this point in your pregnancy your baby is growing at around 1 millimetre per day, and the amniotic fluid in your womb increases by two tablespoons a week. After week eight your baby is officially called a ‘foetus’ which means ‘offspring’, but is still getting nutrition from the yolk sac rather than the placenta. Over the next few weeks the placenta will develop, forming structures called ‘chorionic villi’ which help attached the placenta to the womb wall. Your baby’s  tiny little fingers and toes will have formed, though right now they are webbed and will continue to be so for several weeks, an...

7 weeks pregnant What to expect this week What's happening in week seven Seven weeks in and your unborn baby is coming on in leaps and bounds. Your baby at week seven Your baby is continuing to grow at a remarkable pace, its embryonic form is slowly starting to transform into an actual little person, with emerging arm and leg buds, and a beating heart – how amazing? They also have a tiny tail – but that will soon disappear! Amazingly your baby has already gone through three sets of kidneys by week 7, but this week they’ll start developing their final set which will be ready for waste management. In the coming weeks your baby will start to produce urine which will form part of the amniotic fluid. Size-wise, your baby is now about 1cm in size and not much bigger than a little bean, bobbing around in your womb. You at seven weeks pregnant Seven weeks in, you might be coming to terms with,...