Fourth Month Being Pregnant:
Pregnancy Weeks 13, 14, 15, 16
The fourth month of pregnancy (week 14 through 17) is the beginning of the second trimester, and the beginning of you feeling like yourself again. Your baby's major developments are mostly completed so her body and body systems will spend the remainder of the pregnancy growing and maturing. However, though she is now a perfectly formed tiny human, she is not through changing. All of the minor details that will make her your perfect baby will form and develop over the next few months. For you the symptoms of the first trimester will begin to fade this month which means that for the next couple of months you will feel a bit like the person you were before the pregnancy. On top of that, your baby is almost big enough for you to feel her inside you. For most women, the fourth month is the beginning of the fun part of pregnancy.
By the end of the seventeenth week your baby will have all of the organs she needs to survive. Some of them are even starting to function. Her lungs begin practicing the motions necessary for breathing, although at this point only amniotic fluid will be flowing through them. Her heart has been pumping for months and by the end of this month will pump up to twenty five quarts of blood daily through her body. This number will increase significantly until she is born. Your baby's pancreas is also starting to function and her body produces some of its own insulin.
A very exciting development this month is the development of the external genitalia. By sixteen weeks both male and female babies have external genitalia that are fully formed. With an ultrasound you may be able to determine gender. Usually mother's wait until the twentieth week to do this, however, because at sixteen weeks the baby is still quite small so the gender is more easily confused. If your baby is a girl her reproductive system continues growth this month. She has a tiny uterus and her ovaries are beginning to form the egg cells that will eventually become your grandchildren.
Your baby's eyes and ears undergo significant growth between the thirteenth and seventeenth weeks. Her eyelids will grow and she will be able to blink. The retina in her eyes will start to mature this month, so she may become sensitive to light. However, she won't have full vision for a few months yet. The bones in her ears begin to ossify, which will enable her to hear. By the end of the seventeenth week she may start to hear some sounds, but, as with her vision, her hearing won't fully develop for some time.
Your baby's physical features continue to take shape this month. Her facial features finished their development in the third month, and this month she'll gain control of the muscles governing those features. She can move her mouth and the muscles around her eyes. If you could see her you may even see her grimace. Her eyebrows are forming and she's growing a very fine hair call lanugo all over her body. This helps to protect her and regulate her body temperature. Her fingers and toes are perfectly formed and this month they will start getting their unique prints.
By the seventeenth week your baby is big enough that you may feel her moving inside you. The sensation of movement is called quickening, and most moms experience it sometime around the sixteenth week. The movement will be very faint and will feel like fluttering or gas bubbles in your lower abdomen. By this point your baby is over six inches long and may weigh up to five and a half ounces. She is creating a pattern to her days and will have times where she's asleep, and times where she's awake. You won't notice this pattern yet because your baby is still too small for you to feel all of her movements.
Between the thirteenth and seventeenth week, most expectant mom's notice a sharp decline in morning sickness and fatigue. For some, it goes away entirely. With morning sickness disappearing you'll find that you can eat a greater variety of foods, although you'll probably have an aversion to those foods that made you particularly sick during the first trimester. Fatigue should be decreasing so you'll find it much easier to get through your day. You may not be as energetic as you were before the pregnancy, but you should have a definite increase in energy. However, it's still important to rest or nap when you need to because your body is working much harder than normal.
For some women the fourth month relieves many symptoms, such as morning sickness and the need to urinate frequently, but brings on more. The most common fourth month development is nasal congestion, bleeding gums, or nosebleeds. Your body has a higher amount of blood flowing through your body. That, coupled with hormone changes, can cause pregnancy gingivitis or nosebleeds and congestion. These symptoms aren't anything to worry over, however, unless they are excessive. Some women also experience breathlessness or have trouble sleeping. Again, these are due to the hormone changes in the body. Two other significant changes you may notice this month are a change in body temperature (you may feel overheated or, if you've been cold, you may start to feel normal) and skin changes. The skin around the nipple will probably darken and you may notice blotchy patches on the face. The nipple change is nothing to worry about. The blotchy skin may be normal, but it could also be sign of a nutritional deficiency, so mention it to your caregiver if you experience this.
By the fourth month you've gained enough weight and baby has grown big enough that you're not fitting into your clothes anymore. Looking in the mirror can be depressing because the baby bump isn't defined so you may just feel fat. This won't last long and soon you'll need some maternity clothes. For some women, shopping for maternity clothes acts as a kind of retail therapy because they know they may not fit the clothes yet, but they will within a month or two.
By the end of seventeen weeks you should be feeling great with very little nausea and plenty of energy. You're feeling your baby move inside you, so you know she's growing strong and healthy. Also, in a few short weeks you will be able to confirm the gender. This is a fun time in your pregnancy, with lots of new, fun developments for you and your baby. It's definitely the time to enjoy being pregnant so take advantage of this and relish the time. It goes quickly and in about five months, you'll have your new baby.
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