Your baby
From a grain of rice, the embryo inside you has turned into something like a small prawn. It still looks little like a baby, but that will not be long now, because it really is growing at great speed. Small buds are appearing that will become the limbs. There are even the beginnings of eyes, though they still lie far apart, almost at the sides of the head.
This week the foundations are laid for the stomach, intestines, kidneys and lungs, and there is already a system of blood vessels. At the end of this week the heart starts beating, and a scan now would show a very faint spine. Extraordinary, especially when you consider that your baby is about 5 millimetres long.
You
By now you can probably tell you are pregnant, if only because your breasts feel tight, you are tired and you need to pass water often. Needing the toilet often is a common complaint at the beginning and at the end of pregnancy. Right now it is the result of hormones running high; later, at the end, it will be because the heavy womb presses on the bladder.
Nausea is another common complaint. Sadly there is not much to be done about it. Eat small meals spread through the day, and get up gently in the morning. Some women suffer badly from nausea and vomiting. If you are being sick a lot, take good care of your teeth.
Can you no longer keep down fluid or food? Then contact your family doctor and/or midwife.
Making an appointment with the midwife
As soon as you know you are pregnant, you can make an appointment with the midwife. In most cases it is the midwife who looks after you through the pregnancy; some women come under the care of a gynaecologist. Most midwives schedule the first appointment between the eighth and tenth week.
Thinking about prenatal screening
In the Netherlands every pregnant woman is offered prenatal screening as a matter of course. The midwife will talk about it at your first visit. Often such testing will set your mind at rest about your child's health. But screening can also show that you have an increased chance of a child with, for instance, Down's syndrome.
To be certain, a chorionic villus sampling or an amniocentesis is then needed. And you may have to consider what to do next if that result is not good either. So knowing can also face you with a difficult choice. Talk it over carefully with your partner beforehand: how much do you want to know about your baby's health, how far do you want to go with testing, and what consequences are you prepared to face?
First trimester
