Your Guide to Being 10 Weeks Pregnant: How your baby is growing All your baby’s major organs are complete and the intestines are moving from the umbilical cord into the abdomen. Ears have formed, both inner and outer, and the lips are visible. Your baby’s genitals are starting to form, although at this stage they’re…
Your Guide to Being 9 Weeks Pregnant: How your baby is growing Your baby starts to look more like a baby now, and is beginning to move like one too. The tiny fingers are making grasping movements and exploring everything in range – particularly the umbilical cord, which is usually within easy reach. Touch is…
Your Guide to Being 8 Weeks Pregnant: How your baby is growing The brain is growing rapidly now so your baby’s head is huge in comparison to the body. Muscles start to twitch as they contract, getting ready for independent movement. Bone and cartilage begins to form, and a tiny bud tongue appears. Ears start…
Your Guide to Being 7 Weeks Pregnant: How your baby is growing Your baby starts a growth spurt, which sees a rapid expansion and development of all the vital organs, features and limbs. The brain divides into different sections. Two separate tubes grow in the throat, forming the esophagus (gullet) and trachea (windpipe). Buds appear…
Your Guide to Being 6 Weeks Pregnant: How your baby is growing Your baby has grown distinct hands and feet now. They look like tiny paddles at the end of the four nodules which are your baby’s arms and legs. This is a crucial time in your baby’s development, particularly for eyes and ears, which…
Your guide to being 5 weeks pregnant How your baby is growing Your baby looks like a tadpole, with the ‘body’ housing the head and brain, and the ‘tail’ housing the bodily organs. Your baby is developing facial features, although they don’t look very human yet. They’ll shift into the correct position and look more…
Your Guide to Being 4 Weeks Pregnant: How your baby is growing The stem cells which make up the embryo start to form into specific cells to create your baby’s organs and tissues. Cells at the top begin to form your baby’s nervous system, brain and spinal cord (called the neural tube). Cells in the…
Your Guide to Being 3 Weeks Pregnant: A brand new life begins Your egg contains an X chromosome. Each sperm contains either an X (girl) chromosome or a Y (boy) chromosome, and your child’s gender is determined by which sperm fertilises your egg. Boy sperm swim faster but die sooner. Girl sperm last longer…
Your guide to the second week of pregnancy What’s happening Oestrogen also thins the mucus in your cervix (the entrance to your womb), to allow your partner’s sperm to swim through into your womb and up the fallopian tubes to meet your egg. Sperm is usually prevented from doing this by the thickness of the…
Your guide to the first week of pregnancy: What’s happening So the first two weeks of your baby’s ‘life’ are spent as an unripened egg inside one of your ovaries and a sperm inside your partner’s testicles. But there’s plenty going on, as your body prepares itself for the beginning of your next monthly cycle….
