Feeling Baby Move at 18 Weeks First Pregnancy
Noticing a rumbling in your tummy?
It could be pregnancy hunger pangs — or it could exist the very commencement signs of fetal movement, which can happen at around week 18 of pregnancy.
Your Infant at Week 18
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At xviii weeks, your footling chick is about the aforementioned size as that chicken breast on your dinner plate — about 5 inches long and five ounces in weight.
But don't permit his small-scale size fool y'all — there are big goings-on in that little body of his this week. Meconium — your infant'due south first poop — is slowly starting to accumulate in his bowels. If your baby's a male child, his prostate gland is forming. And both girl and boy babies now officially sport finger and toe prints. Those tiny swirls and wrinkles mark your babe as uniquely himself from here on out… though there's probably trivial demand to tell yous how especially unique your baby is!
Nether major construction now is your infant's nervous organization. That's the network that coordinates your cutie's every motility. Correct now your babe's encephalon, spinal cord, and nerves get a boost from myelin, a substance that coats the fretfulness and speeds upward the fourth dimension information technology takes for messages to travel between nerve cells.
Myelin also helps infant'south fretfulness course more complex connections, enabling your teeny mover and shaker to perfect more intricate moves such as sucking a thumb, clasping hands, and curling his fingers around the umbilical cord.
And judge what, momma! Somebody's listening to you. Baby'south ears take arrived at their concluding destination — the sides of his head — and the tiny bones within the inner ear accept hardened, allowing your infant to hear some sounds, including the sweetness sound of your voice! At present hear this: cheers to all the time they spend listening to it in utero, studies bear witness that babies are able to identify their mom'due south voice right after birth. Keep that in mind the next time you serenade your womb with your lullabies…or rock out in the shower. Your little one is all ears!
At a Glance
Tiny fingerprints
Your 1-of-a-kind infant is truly one of a kind now, with unique fingerprints on those little fingertips and toes.
Nerve protection
Myelin, a protective insulation, is starting to form around baby-to-be's nerves. This covering continues to abound until your baby'southward showtime birthday.
Girl and boy parts defined
Having a girl? The fallopian tubes and uterus are now in proper position. A boy? Genitals may be visible on your next ultrasound.
eighteen weeks significant is how many months?
If you're xviii weeks pregnant, you lot're in month v of your pregnancy. Only 4 months left to go! Still have questions? Here's some more information on how weeks, months and trimesters are cleaved down in pregnancy.
How big is my baby at xviii weeks?
At 5½ inches long from crown to rump and 5 to half-dozen½ ounces in weight — about the size of that boneless chicken breast you're making for dinner — your babe may be large enough now or anytime in the adjacent few weeks for you to feel twisting, rolling, kicking and punching in the womb.
Baby is yawning
Now for the skill of the week: The art of the yawn has been mastered by your babe, along with hiccupping, which you may feel shortly, likewise!
In fact, you might grab a glimpse of that ambrosial yawn and all those other fetal movements at your ultrasound this month.
Baby'due south nervous organization is maturing quickly
Something you won't come across on the ultrasound — simply y'all'll acquire is in working society — is your baby's nervous system, which is maturing rapidly when you're eighteen weeks pregnant.
A network of fretfulness, now covered with a substance chosen myelin that helps speed messages from nerve jail cell to nerve cell, are forming more complex connections.
And those in the encephalon are further developing into the ones that serve the senses of touch, sense of taste, smell, sight and hearing.
Speaking of hearing, your baby'south is growing more acute and infant tin can finally fully hear you this calendar week, making your piffling one more conscious of sounds that come from within your torso. Meaning you could both be listening to each other hiccup!
Your Body at Week 18
Quick growth
Is it a girl? A male child? How about a sizeable fruit or vegetable? At 18 weeks, your baby is about the length of a cucumber and your uterus is around the size of a sweet murphy — meet how you're working your way through the produce section? It can be felt almost 1½ inches beneath your belly button — so take a feel.
How Big Are 18-Week Bumps?
Your 18 weeks pregnant belly
When yous're 18 weeks significant, you'll likely await noticeably pregnant, since your baby and uterus are growing rapidly. But remember that every woman is different equally is each pregnancy, so even this far forth, some still accept small bumps while others accept popped a lot.
All baby bumps at 18 weeks significant are fine and normal and may vary based on how much weight you lot and baby are gaining, your meridian and build, and whether this is your commencement pregnancy or not.
Just don't size upwardly your xviii weeks pregnant abdomen next to those of pregnant friends at the same stage, or worry that you lot're measuring too large or too modest. If you're actually concerned, you tin always talk to your practitioner, but rest assured that if you and your infant are tracking normally at your prenatal appointments, everything is likely just fine.
Your back aches
Something else yous may be feeling right at present: back pain. Your growing uterus shifts your middle of gravity — which means your lower dorsum is pulled forward while your abdomen is thrust out — adept for tipping off the person who got the last seat on the passenger vehicle that you're pregnant, bad for your back muscles.
Couple that with the changes that the pregnancy hormone relaxin is instituting — namely relaxing all your ligaments, including those that adhere your pelvic bones to your spine, and loosening joints — and that leaves you lot with backaches and pains, not to mention a shifting posture.
Reduce pain by using a human foot balance to elevate your feet slightly when sitting. When standing, place one pes on a depression stool when possible to take some pressure off your lower dorsum. A long, warm bathroom can also practise wonders. And if your back pain only won't quit, be sure to talk to your practitioner.
Reducing heartburn
Forget the burrito with extra jalapeños — sometimes fifty-fifty a bite of toast will set your gut on fire these days. That'south the problem with heartburn — an all-too-common symptom that can persist throughout your pregnancy. An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of Tums — although you might want to keep those handy, besides, since they'll banish the burn down while boosting your calcium intake.
For starters, eat slowly and chew thoroughly. Endeavor non to eat lunch on the run or gobble your dinner standing up, and swallow smaller meals and snacks rather than v-alarm gut bombs.
After you terminate eating, sit upright for a few hours, or every bit long every bit you tin final without collapsing into bed, and sleep with your head elevated, which also helps with the snoring. And practice skip annihilation on the menu with a moving picture of a flame next to information technology!
Pregnancy Symptoms Week 18
Fetal move
Bloating and gas
Leg cramps
Bleeding gums
Edema (swelling in feet and ankles)
Stretch marks
Tips for You This Week
Don't make any sudden moves
During pregnancy, progesterone increases the catamenia of claret to your baby, resulting in lower blood pressure and reduced blood flow to your encephalon — giving you that faint feeling all over.
To help stave off dizziness, ever stand up up from a sitting or lying position slowly.
Interview pediatricians
Now'southward a great fourth dimension in your pregnancy to interview potential pediatricians. After all, there's a good chance that the doctor will first run across your baby within 24 hours of your little 1'southward nascency.
And then ask a lot of questions before you make your option and broach topics like appointment availability, hospital affiliations, vaccines and circumcision.
Time for relaxin?
Unfortunately, we don't mean "relaxing." During the second trimester, your body releases relaxin, a hormone that (as the name implies) loosens the ligaments that concur your bones together. The result: an achy pelvis and hips — and maybe fifty-fifty bigger feet!
Y'all may be cursing this pregnancy hormone at present, but when you're trying to push out your infant'due south big head, you'll be thanking relaxin for doing its task.
Pump iron
Even red-meat eaters can have a hard time getting plenty iron from their diets. If yous're someone who sticks to plant-based foods, you'll have to double your efforts to pump up the atomic number 26 — vegan and vegetarian moms-to-be have a college take chances for iron-deficiency anemia.
Foods like beans, soy products, oat bran, barley, pumpkin seeds, stale fruits, spinach, seaweed, Jerusalem artichokes and blackstrap molasses all take some atomic number 26 in them, but you may besides demand to take an iron supplement to brand sure you lot're meeting your daily quota. Inquire your practitioner whether that's the case.
Be wary of supplements
Herbal supplements exercise make the virtually tempting of promises — especially when pregnancy leaves y'all with few self-medicating options. Would information technology really injure to popular a couple of ginkgo biloba capsules to requite your encephalon cells a fighting chance of remembering to pay this month's electric bill? Afterwards all, the bottles say "all natural"…and you did buy them at the health food store.
Actually, it could hurt — particularly now that you're sharing those pills with a little someone else. Herbs and herbal remedies are not tested or approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prior to going on the market and are not required to undergo clinical trials, so their prophylactic, or lack thereof, is unknown.
Even supplements that you've heard could be helpful could actually be harmful at different points during your pregnancy — past causing premature labor if taken besides early on, for instance.
And a number of herbs — such as basil oil, blackness or blue cohosh, clove oil, sassafras, wild yam and many others — tin can be downright dangerous if taken anytime during pregnancy. Be condom and check with your practitioner earlier you pop whatsoever pill.
Avert some workout moves
Certain exercises may work not bad for the non-meaning prepare, but at present that you're expecting, don't even think well-nigh trying them.
Just say no to upside-down "bicycles," shoulder stands, or flat-on-your-back positions after the fourth month.
Likewise off-limits: deep-knee bends, back bends, jumping and bouncing.
Get ready for tiny kicks
You'll probably notice babe's first picayune kicks anytime between weeks 18 and 22 — and sometimes as belatedly every bit weeks 23 or 24 for kickoff-time pregnancies.
Those tiny feet tin exist felt in many different ways: every bit the merest flutter, the most insistent slug or gas bubbles that aren't gas at all.
As for when and how you lot'll feel your baby move? Several factors come up into play: a mom's size (the slimmer you are, the more likely you lot'll feel movements earlier); your muscle tone (the laxer the uterine muscles, the easier it is to feel those kicks — which is why 2nd-timers generally feel them sooner); and the baby's position (it'southward trickier to detect movement when your baby kicks facing in).
An incorrect due engagement tin as well throw off the recognition of those monumental first kicks. Don't worry: There's no mistaking the real thing in one case your baby gets the technique downwardly — and gets big enough to pack a serious punch.
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Source: https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week-18.aspx
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