Basics Of Pregnancy

Pregnancy means creating life, an extraordinary gift given by nature to women. A pregnant woman experiences many changes in her body, the very least an expanding waistline. These changes are natural, such as stretch marks and weight gain, among many others.

One of the best ways to a healthy pregnancy is to remain happy. Increase your level of happiness by maintaining a positive mindset, even though you may feel that certain changes occuring in your body are unpleasant.

Changes During Pregnancy

You undergo many emotional and physical changes during pregnancy. Many women start a pregnancy journal recording all that they go through or feel. These changes occur right from the time you notice your very first early pregnancy symptom.

Understand the changes that occur inside you during pregnancy, week by week.

Pregnancy is divided into three stages of three trimesters each:

From weeks 1 to 14

Weeks 15 to 26

And, weeks 27 to 40.

During the first trimester, your egg gets fertilized, the implantation of the embryo happens, and you start feeling morning sickness by the 27th day. In this trimester, the embryo's head starts to form. The development of lung linings, tongue, bladder, digestive tract, muscles, bones, heart, lungs, spleen, the skin, nails, hair, eye lens, nose, and mouth, among other parts, starts. The heart begins to beat during this period. By the 10th week, your embryo is now a baby. By the 14th week, your areolas begin to change - they become larger and darker.

During the second trimester, your baby's muscles become stronger, and his toenails begin to grow. His eyes and ears will be in their right places. If your baby is going to be a girl, it is during this period, in the 19th week, that her primitive egg cells will begin to develop in her ovaries. The scalp hair and eyebrow formation will begin. By the 21st week, you can detect your baby's heartbeat with a stethoscope. If your baby is a boy, by week 22, his testes will begin to move into his scrotum. By the end of this trimester, the little one's brain wave activity starts.

During the third trimester, your baby's eyelids un-fuse, and the eyelashes will have grown. It now starts storing the nutrients taken in by you. The internal organs are still developing and maturing. The five senses start registering, though the sense of smell is limited. The baby starts to develop his own immune system by week 34. By week 35, it re-positions in a head down position.

The baby could born any time from week 38 onwards, since 85 percent of babies are born within two weeks of their actual due date.