Inside Your Body
Your baby is about 15cm long and gaining a lot of weight at 230g. He/she has been living comfortably in an aquatic environment so far. Imagine if you stay in water for 1 day, how puckered your skin would get? So nature has devised a method to prevent your baby’s skin from the damage of an aquatic environment. By the 19th week, along with fine baby hairs, he/she will also develop a white cheesy material (called vernix caseosa) that insulates her body and skin from the amniotic fluid. This will shed as you get closer to your due date.
Your Signs And Symptoms
People say that when you are pregnant, you will glow. But due to all the hormones of pregnancy, you are more liable to get skin changes in the form of freckles, blotchy marks on your chin and cheeks, darkening of skin, and itching. Moreover, your skin may become rough or may peel. But don’t worry, this will all be gone after delivery. Just pay attention to your diet and avoid stress.
Due to your expanding uterus, your abdomen develops striae, which are silver-white lines or stretch marks and the darkening of your skin that appears in the form of a line that runs from your neck to your belly button. Once again, these are temporary and disappear after delivery.
What Tests To Expect
If you did not do a foetal structural scan for abnormalities last week, chances are, you may be doing it this week. Good luck.
Whenever your gynaecologist does an ultrasound check, he/she is checking on several things: regularity of fetal heartbeat, health of your baby’s organs, any abnormalities, size of your baby, and adequacy of the amniotic fluid protecting your baby. The more often you do an ultrasound, the better the monitoring of your pregnancy and your baby’s health.
