Get In Your Belly!

Your bump might be growing by the day, but that’s nothing compared with the exciting developments going on inside your body

0-4 WEEKS

A lot happens in the crucial first month of your pregnancy. Your embryo is growing by around 1 mm every day and by the end of the fourth week, it will be as big as the nib of a ballpoint pen, with its brain, heart, lungs, liver and kidneys already starting to form.

FOCUS ON The heart

By the end of the third week, your baby’s first blood vessels will start to grow. However, at this early stage, they’ll be no thicker than a single strand of hair. Then, in the fourth week, the single cell that will become your baby’s heart will kick-start, encouraging the surrounding cells to move to the same beat and divide into chambers.

5-8 WEEKS

Over the next four weeks, your baby will become a complete human being with organs, limbs and muscles, and she will quadruple in length from around 4mm to being 16mm long. For the time being, her head will outgrow her body. At six weeks, she’s only around the size of a kidney bean, but by eight weeks, she’s the size of a walnut and is starting to move her tiny head and legs. Even at this very early stage in her development, your baby has already learnt how to yawn, suck and swallow.

FOCUS ON Foetal gymnastics

As early as nine weeks into her development, your baby is quite the little gymnast. She will use the walls of your uterus to bounce around inside you.

9-12 WEEKS

Your baby has now passed the most important stage in her development and she’s no longer considered to be an embryo. She’s now a foetus. Her body is beginning to catch up with her head as her limbs straighten out and her skeleton forms. By 12 weeks, her bones will begin to harden and her fingernails will start to grow. She’s now around the size of a squash ball and her body’s most important structures are in place.

FOCUS ON Gender