Week 14

Fetal development in pregnancy week 14: fetus in fourth month

Isn’t it glorious? You and your little buckaroo have roped your way right into trimester numero dos! Are you ready to rock!? Okay, okay… maybe just a little rolling and poking. Needless to say, your baby will definitely be making themselves known in the upcoming weeks. At about 3.5 inches long, their little body and limber limbs are coordinated enough for loads of complicated motions. In fact, their whole body is moving right now! You're not feeling it because their current size is still a bit too small to make an impact you'd recognize. Still, their movements are recognizable on an ultrasound. Speaking of which, you should be scheduling one with your health care provider! Week 16 is the classic date as you can usually determine whether your little one is going to pee standing up or sitting down. Your baby is also starting to develop the ability to move their eyes this week, although the eyelids still remain fused shut. What's more, they can make all sorts of fun facial expressions as they practice squinting, frowning, and grimacing. Cute development of the week: their little hands can grasp at things and they may already be sucking their thumb!

And how's mom doing? What’s in the forecast for your second trimester? We’ve got a heavy concentration of developing fetal movement, which will increase in magnitude in frequency through the duration of the second trimester before subsiding in the third trimester as womb-space becomes limited. If you think you’ve got gas or some kind of odd bowel obstruction right now, it might actually just be your little one poking you hello! You’ll become more familiar with the sensation as the frequency and intensity increase (and you’ll never quite forget this special feeling!).

On to the less exciting news. In your second trimester, you will most likely experience some if not all of the following symptoms to varying degrees: dizziness, headache and back pain. Just like morning sickness during the first trimester, your chances of experiencing a given set of symptoms increases if you’ve already had them in a previous pregnancy. Unfortunately, if you’re starting to experience back pain, it will most likely increase as you gain more weight towards the end of the trimester. Although unavoidable during your waking hours, you don’t have to suffer so much during the night—there are some wonderful products out there such as the full body pregnancy pillow, which will help you make it through the night without too much undue suffering. Water retention is another fairly classic albeit annoying pregnancy symptom which typically leads to swollen fingers, toes, ankles and/or legs. These are all perfectly normal (and fairly bearable) symptoms that should not be a source of unnecessary stress. Despite these annoyances, the second trimester is typically experienced as the most exciting and enjoyable of the three— the morning sickness is gone, you definitely feel and look pregnant, but you’re not yet an overstuffed-lumbering-mammoth. Go team go!