A Closer Look at Pregnancy Week by Week
If you are overwhelmed by the prospect of giving birth to a child, take a deep breath and take the magical ride that is your pregnancy week by week. While nine long months may seem quite interminable to contemplate at a glance, in each of those forty weeks, there will be many new, exciting discoveries.
Conventional wisdom tends to break it all down to pregnancy trimesters, but the truth is this demarcation is more useful in courtrooms than bedrooms. A week-by-week schedule will give you a lot more resolution when it comes to preparing yourself for stuff like morning sickness, which can start as soon as the fertilized egg is implanted into your uterus.
Week By Week
In the first four weeks, you will experience a few physiological changes, even though the old adage about new lingerie actually doesn’t occur until later for the majority of expecting mothers. From week five onwards, your body will progressively crank up hormonal production in order to accommodate the new “cohab” arrangements. Food tastes are different, simply existing feels different, and mood swings are, statistically speaking, at their most frequent from this period on.
By week nine, the little grape of a person now possesses facial features. Fatigue becomes an even bigger issue as physical energy is expended for the foetus’ growth. A diet heavy on roughage and abundant in carbohydrates – not unlike that of a body-builder when you think about it – will bring about some relief until the end of the 21st week.
By then, you will start experiencing kicks and a hankering for more food. Resist the temptation and prepare yourself for lactation instead, which is slated for delivery by the 26th week. Cramps are a frequent complaint at this point, and potassium in bananas usually alleviates these syndromes.
In the 30th week, your body will brace itself for labour, so it merits a week-by-week review of your dietary requirements. Calcium will bolster the bones in that very visible bump. And by the 35th week, it’s time to pack your hospital bags for that final push.
Once you’ve taken this gargantuan event into a bite-sized, week by week pregnancy, everything will become more manageable.