Pregnancy week by week

You

You are probably gaining weight about half a kilo a week, but about half of it is meant for your baby. Your walk could become swinging, as the pregnancy hormone called relaxin makes your hip joints more movable. The walk is influenced by the back bent hollow under the growing weight.

Your baby

Your baby weighs now more than 1.9 kg and is about 42 cm tall. During the next seven weeks it gains weight for about one third up to half of its birth weight and grows its layers of adipose tissue, so that the survival rate would be higher as the newborn. Thanks to the developed lungs and sufficiently strong immune system 90% of the children born during week 32 survive. One of the reasons of prematurity is the intrauterine growth restriction whereby the fetuses do not reach their growth potential due to the deficient blood supply of placenta and in case of full pregnancy their birth weight would be less than 2500g. The rate of occurrence is 5% of the born children. The intrauterine growth restriction is a big challenge for the gynaecologist monitoring the pregnancy, as sometimes birth should be evoked earlier to save the life of the child in need of food and oxygen.

Dr. Marek Šois recommends

The finding of a comfortable position to sleep is now already a real challenge. Try to sleep on the left side, thus there is less pressure on the bladder. It is not recommended to sleep on the stomach, especially for the women with bigger weight. Your uterus continues to press on your organs and this might cause heartburn, constipation, digestive disorders and gasping. You could mitigate the feeling of discomfort, if you drink a lot of water, eat many fibres and eat often, but at the same time in small quantities.

If you belong to the risk group of pre-eclampsia or your midwife suspects that your stomach has not grown as expected, you might be interested in our third-trimester fetal ultrasound for the assessment of fetal growth and position: http://www.ultraheli.ee/iii-trimestri-loote-ultraheliuuring.