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 helps prevent a bladder infection. If you think you have one, contact us; we will have your urine tested. 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
At the first appointment we had your blood tested, among other things for your blood group and for rhesus D and rhesus c. If you are rhesus D negative, you lack a particular protein on your red blood cells that most people do have. If your baby does have that protein (rhesus D positive), you can produce antibodies if a little of your baby's blood enters your bloodstream during the pregnancy or the birth. In a later pregnancy those antibodies can cross the placenta and make the baby ill.
That is why we have your blood tested again around this week if you are rhesus D negative or rhesus c negative. The laboratory checks whether you have produced antibodies and, for rhesus D negative women, also determines your baby's rhesus D blood group from your blood. If your baby is rhesus D positive, you are given an anti-D injection in week 30 and another after the birth. Those injections stop your body from making antibodies. If antibodies are found, further tests are needed; we will discuss that with you. Read more on pns.nl (in Dutch).
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.
Acknowledging parenthood
If you are married or in a registered partnership, your partner is automatically your child's legal parent and you need to arrange nothing for the acknowledgement (in Dutch). If you are not married and not registered partners, your partner is not automatically the legal parent, even with a cohabitation contract. Your partner can then acknowledge the child at the municipality, preferably during the pregnancy. For that you go to the town hall together — do not forget your passport or identity card.
When acknowledging the child you also set its surname. If your partner has not acknowledged the child before the birth, your baby automatically takes your surname. Since 2023 a partner who acknowledges the child also automatically gets parental authority. Read more under Important to know.