Welcome to the Pregged pregnancy week-by-week series. Each week-by-week post is separated into three handy sections.
1. Mom – Section one covers the changes mom will experience and the things she may need to consider health-wise.
2. Baby – Section two looks at the development of the fetus and what’s going on with baby inside the womb.
3. Nutrition – Section three covers nutrition for each week of pregnancy so that you know what foods are important to include in your diet at each stage.
6 WEEKS PREGNANT – MOM
Feeling better yet? You are entering the realm of pregnancy bliss— the second trimester, and it’s a time to rejoice because you are in the best part of pregnancy. You should be feeling awesome (after all, the second trimester doesn’t get its reputation for being the most comfortable of the three trimesters for nothing).
But if you’re not feeling better yet, don’t worry. Unfortunately for some women, bloating, constipation, headaches and breast tenderness can continue to some degree throughout pregnancy. If you think your belly is too big, it’s because your uterus is peaking over the pubic bone and heading towards your lower abdomen. You might even be able to feel the top of it if you press a little deeper. Don’t be afraid—there’s plenty of protection to your little person who is now able to move his or her chin off the chest by now. Your doctor can probably hear the heart beat with a hand-held device called a fetal doppler which is just sound waves that make noises by bouncing off the baby’s heart muscles to detect the heart beat—usually 140-160 per minute. High or low, it doesn’t determine the gender of the baby despite silly wife’s tales.
Baby Development
Believe it or not, your offspring can use his or her facial muscles to squint, frown, smile and react to outside noise or movements. Sucking the thumb can occur now as can grasping and stretching. The arms and legs are growing more proportionally, and stretching activities are possible—overall, the baby is quite flexible. The liver is kicking out bile those nasty digestive juices, even though there is little to digest except amniotic fluid. Let’s talk about that fetal circulation that is opposite from what the blood flow will be doing once the tike is out of the oven. Usually, oxygenated blood flows from the lungs to the rest of the body via the arterial system. And, blood lacking oxygen and nutrients return to the heart via veins. In the case of the baby, who cannot breathe oxygen yet, the umbilical artery has the least amount of oxygen and food as it is on its way to the placenta to collect its food and oxygen from mama. More on that later.
Pregnancy Nutrition Week 6
Eating for two? You know your daily quota of fruits and veggies, complex carbs, and protein. Remember that when it comes to eating during pregnancy, the best rule is to err on the side of safety and stay away from foods that could harbor pathogens to make you sick. Besides bacteria and toxins that can be harmful, there are certain ingredients, like caffeine, that you’ll want to limit. So, avoid not only well-known poisons such as alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, but also unpasteurized dairy, raw or seared seafood, rare or underdone meat, hot dogs, raw eggs, high-mercury fish, and raw sprouts. As you don’t have to worry about finding unpasteurized milk at the supermarket, but some softer cheeses can contain Listeria- a bacteria linked to serious infections. To stay safe, don’t eat feta, Brie, Camembert, goat cheese, blue-veined cheeses, and queso. Unpasteurized juices like apple cider should be avoided as well.