Sunday, September 28, 2008
He won't stop rolling around, he's gonna be a gymnast
Fetal development in pregnancy week 25:
fetus in sixth month Your little grower’s physical proportions are evening out at this point and most of their remaining development will largely be weight gain and lots and lots of nervous system development. The good news is: if your child is born premature now they’ll be more likely to survive without too much trauma as their lungs began to produce “surfactant” last week, which means their tiny respiratory system is getting stronger with each passing day. Yes, now’s a good time for a minor sigh of relief and a quick pat on the back. All that hard work and conscientious living is really getting your child prepared for a healthy delivery. Keep up the fabulous work mama! This week they’ll be scootching slowly out of the old breech position and start rotating (already!) into a better position for exit during their birth. Their head and feet are slowly rotating so that the head is pointed down towards the birth canal. Time is short (or really long, depending on who you ask)—just (still!) 14 weeks left before you can go back to being a single-resident human.
Why do pregnancies take so loooooong
Fetal development in pregnancy week 24:
fetus in sixth month This is another big week for your magical growing baby! Just take a look at the checklist for this week: 1) ears: done; 2) fingernails: done; 3) (if you have a boy) testicles: taking their 3-4 day trip from the abdominal wall to the scrotum; and 4) lungs walls: secreting “surfactant”. What’s that? Well, surfactant is sort of what it sounds like: a surface-activated fat whose main purpose is to assist the your baby's little lungs during inflation (as in, filling with air, not getting more expensive). Just in case you’re curious, your submerged baby is still breathing in amniotic fluid, preparing and rehearsing the lungs an oxygen-filled life outside the womb. By the end of this week, your child will be weighing around 2 lbs and 14 inches long. Your cutie-patootie may even be a little more plump, but isn't anywhere near their full baby-fatted cute-self. Most of the “filling out” is coming up in that long awaited (and slightly dreaded?) third trimester. Woo-hoo! Get ready!
I'm gettin lazy bout postin
Fetal development in pregnancy week 23:
fetus in sixth month At this point you’ve pretty much adjusted to the fact you’ve got a moving little gymnast inside of you, but now they’re going to kick up the party a notch because they can hear and react to sounds from the outside world. Sounds from your alarm clock, a thunder roll, or that darned car honking at you across the intersection can actually jar their little ears enough to elicit a kick or violent bout of squirming. Of course this also means that their little ears are picking up the sounds of your voice and those near you. So go ahead, sing a lullaby to your little angel—if they start kicking, it’s likely they just want you to stop… or maybe it was a kick of approval? You decide. Your baby's tiny taste buds are still growing and their bones are continuing to ossify (harden), their tiny veins are visible through their translucent yet wrinkly skin. (Think of it this way: they’ve been swimming in the equivalent of a long hot bath for the past 23 weeks, so you can’t blame them for being a little prune-like.)
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
She just keeps eating and eating and eating......
Fetal development in pregnancy week 22:fetus in fifth month The grow must go on! No wonder you’re getting so big, you’re now housing a wonder-baby who weighs nearly a pound and measures nearly a foot in length. Their perfect little pancreas is now further developed and they’ve also started producing their own hormones! Your baby's future in the circus as a world-famous tight-rope-walker is secure: their inner ear is now developed to the point that they have their own sense of balance. Lucky for your little explorer, balance also promotes physical dexterity, which has them actively feeling out their surroundings where skin, body parts, and the resident umbilical cord are the big sensory experiences. Your foot-long baby, is looking a bit like an oversized raisin right now as more and more wrinkles are showing up each week. Not to worry, all that excessive wrinkling is just their skin’s way of planning ahead for the time when they’ll start piling on that irresistible baby chub.
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