What's happening when you're 9 weeks pregnant? Your baby’s not quite ready for a cap and gown, but this week, it’s graduation time, as your little one graduates from her embryonic stage and officially enters the fetal period. At about an inch long, the graduate is the size of a medium green cocktail olive. But please, hold the martini!
Baby’s heart is now both developed and large enough to be picked up by ultrasound. But if your practitioner can’t detect the thump-thump of that little ticker this week, don’t worry. It probably means your tiny target is hiding out in a far corner of your uterus or facing away from the sensor. Sometime in the next few weeks, you’ll get a listen for sure.
Your little body builder can boast the groundbreaking of some brand new organs this week. The liver, the spleen, and the gallbladder are all under construction now. The bladder and urethra separate from the developing digestive tract, and the intestines begin to move out of the umbilical cord and into the abdominal cavity, which has grown big enough to house them.
The diaphragm starts to form. It’s the muscular membrane that will separate the chest and abdomen, plus help your cutie breathe after she’s born. And though you won’t feel it yet, your baby is trying out some early moves. Tiny muscles are starting to develop, allowing your little dancer to make spontaneous reflex movements with those tiny arms and legs.
Did You Know?
An hour of exercise per day during pregnancy (skip the skiing and contact sports) can have a huge range of benefits including: faster recovery from birth, a calmer & healthier baby, decreased risk of getting diabetes, easier labor, fewer pregnancy symptoms such as fatigue, back ache, constipation, and hemorrhoids, and (the clincher) you’ve got less weight to lose after you've given birth.
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