How Your Baby Grows Inside You: Week 14

How Your Baby Grows Inside You: Week 14

6 Dec 2016 | 3 min Read

Baby 360 Degrees

Author | 62 Articles

Lady, you are already going strong into your second trimester, yay! Your baby is now about 10 cms in length and weighs approximately 28 grams. That’s a little human in your tummy already!

Your baby’s face is developing and s/he can now squint, frown, grimace and smile. The baby’s kidneys also produce urine which s/he passes into the amniotic fluid.

One of the major developments this week is the development of lanugo. Lanugo is the fine hair which grows almost all over the entire body of your baby. The purpose lanugo serves is to form a protective layer around your baby’s sensitive skin. This will all shed prior to birth and will be replaced by thicker, coarser hair.

Your baby now has eyebrows and hair is starting to sprout on her/his head as well.

 

Signs and Symptoms

The feeling of tiredness and lethargy will mostly disappear from this week on. Make the most of this energy burst by enrolling into a prenatal class, if you haven’t already. Regular exercises will tone up your muscles for labor and delivery while also keeping you free from aches and pains.

You might also develop a dark line on your body which runs down the centre of your abdomen. This is called the linea nigra. This line, along with the other hormonal changes will disappear a few weeks post birth.

 

Physical Development

As your bump grows, you might gain a tendency to  slouch a bit. Consciously remind yourself to pull back your shoulders and sit erect. We do not want to nurse an aching back, now do we?

 

Emotional Development

You probably want to hear your baby’s heartbeat again and again as it makes you feel connected to the little life growing inside you.

There are many apps available now that claim to make you hear your baby’s heartbeat over your smart phone and even make recordings of the beats. However, these have not yet been proven to be very accurate, and are not as sensitive as the Doppler.

They may on the other hand, cause some panic if you are not able to locate the heartbeats.

 

Red Flags

Continue to watch what you eat as you need to put on healthy pregnancy weight and not the unhealthy, hard-to-lose kilos.

You can travel by auto rickshaw over short distances now that you’re in the safe zone of your pregnancy. However, always ask the driver to drive slowly and stop whenever you feel uncomfortable.

 

Old Wives’ Tales

It is a very popular myth in Indian culture that the appearance of the linea nigra signifies a male offspring. However, as the line seems to appear in most women due to hormonal changes, this myth has been modified over the years.

The current myth is that a straight smooth line signifies a female offspring and a curvy line signifies a male offspring. No scientific evidence for either though!

 

Explore the entire collection of articles: Pregnancy Must Know

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