Your baby
There is a great deal of activity inside you. Your child kicks, even makes stepping movements, waves its arms, closes its hands into fists, moves toes and fingers, and swims from one side of your abdomen to the other.
You probably feel none of it yet, though you may if you have been pregnant before — then you know what to look out for. All that movement is very good for training the muscles.
Your child's vocal cords are ready now too. Of course no sound can be made yet, because that takes air. Your baby is also growing fine downy hair, covering the whole body: the forehead, the abdomen, the legs, the hands.
That downy hair stays until about the thirty-seventh week. It probably serves to hold in place the vernix produced by the sebaceous glands. That vernix in turn protects your child's skin against the softening effect of the amniotic fluid and against infection. If your child arrives a little before 40 weeks, there may still be fine hairs on the shoulders, back and face.
You
Your womb is now about the size of a firm fist. As it grows, other organs are squeezed a little — your bladder among them.
Everything about you may become somewhat rounder now. Not only your abdomen and your breasts, but your hips, your shoulders and your face too. It often gives you a softer look. How much weight you will put on over the whole pregnancy cannot be predicted. On average it is around twelve and a half to fifteen kilos.
Those kilos break down roughly as follows
- your baby: 3,400 grams
- placenta and membranes: 650 grams
- amniotic fluid: 750 grams
- womb: 1,000 grams
- breasts: 800 grams
- blood: 1,000 grams
- extra fat: 3,400 grams
- extra fluid: 1,500 grams
Slim women often put on rather more on average, because their bodies have to build up a layer of maternal fat in order to work well. But it can go differently: some slender women barely have a bump even at the end of the pregnancy.
Maternity clothes
When you will need proper maternity clothes cannot be said exactly; it differs for everyone. One woman tries to wear ordinary clothes for as long as she can, another would happily put on maternity wear after a month.
But if your tight jeans are no longer comfortable, you can simply wear loose trousers, tunics, stretchy dresses and skirts. And otherwise maternity clothes it is. Happily, maternity wear these days is stylish and fun — no punishment to wear at all.
First trimester
