Your baby
You can make more and more contact with your child. If you lie relaxed on the bed or the sofa and rub your hands gently over your abdomen, or press carefully, your baby will come towards your hands. It may not work the first time, but repeat it a few times, take your time over it and concentrate, and it certainly will.
And once it works you can even play a game with your child by moving your hand a little each time. Your baby comes to your hand again and again to nestle against that spot. Making contact this way is also taught in haptonomy.
You
Do you need to pass water very often, and does it hurt? Then you may have a bladder infection — an infection of the bladder and urethra. Your urine will be cloudy too. As a woman you are already more prone to bladder infections because your urethra is short and its opening is close to the vagina. But during pregnancy your defences work differently, which makes you more susceptible to infection still.
Drinking plenty can prevent a bladder infection. If the symptoms persist, have your urine tested by your doctor. You may also feel a little dizzy and light-headed at times. That too is to do with the pregnancy: the walls of your blood vessels have slackened, so your blood flows more slowly and your blood pressure can drop briefly if you stand up too fast. Take it gently.
You may now also run into typical cosmetic complaints — thread veins in the face, for instance. Sadly there is not much to be done. Try to limit extreme changes of temperature as far as you can. After your pregnancy it fades of its own accord.
Your nails may break more easily than usual as well, a result of the hormonal changes in your body. Rub in a nail cream and use a strengthening varnish. And are your eyes suddenly puffier? Perhaps you are not getting enough rest after all. Try going to bed extra early one evening. An ice cube on the eyes sometimes helps too.
A blood test
In the twelfth week your blood is tested, and that also establishes whether you are rhesus D negative — meaning you have a particular substance in your blood. If you are rhesus D negative, blood is taken again this week. Your baby may have rhesus D positive blood, and if a little of your baby's blood enters your bloodstream during pregnancy that can cause problems. It is highly unlikely, since the bloodstreams of mother and child are strictly separate, but it is possible. You would then produce antibodies against your child's blood, and those antibodies can reach your child through the umbilical cord and make him or her ill.
Around this week we check whether antibodies have formed in your blood. If they have, you are given an injection within a week that reduces the chance of your body making more of them.
Straight after the birth a little blood is taken from the umbilical cord to see your child's blood group. If he or she is rhesus D positive, you are given an injection so that your body will not produce antibodies afterwards. That matters for any future pregnancy with a rhesus D positive child.
Maternity clothes
When you first need maternity clothes differs from woman to woman. Generally, from around fifteen weeks pregnant women often can no longer wear all their usual clothes. You can normally keep to your usual size in maternity wear: if you are always an M, that will probably stay the same.
Bear in mind too that after the birth you usually cannot get back into your ordinary clothes straight away, so you will be wearing your maternity clothes for a while yet.
Registering fatherhood
If you are married, you need arrange nothing for the acknowledgement of your child. But if you are not married, your partner is not automatically your child's official father. That applies even if you have a cohabitation contract. At the registry office you can, together and during the pregnancy, have the acknowledgement of fatherhood drawn up.
Doing it now means fatherhood is registered in good time, so that he is not only the biological but also the legal father. Even if you are registered partners, it is better for your partner to acknowledge your child. For that you go to the town hall together — do not forget your passports or identity cards. When acknowledging the unborn child you can also set your child's surname. If your partner has not acknowledged the child before the birth, your baby automatically takes your surname.
Second trimester
