What’s Happening With Mom?
You are looking pregnant, mama. Your uterus has grown so much that the top is level with your belly button this week, your placenta is one inch thick, your breasts might have increased two cup sizes, and you’ve probably gained about 10 pounds.
The effect of having a basketball-sized bump is that your body has to adjust to carry the extra weight. That’s why you might be a little clumsy as your skeleton adjusts and your balance re-adjusts. It’s also what’s giving you that infernal backache, and those aches and pains.
As well as backache, which affects everyone, another common type of pain that’s normal to have around this time is round ligament pain, an short intense pulling or tugging pain on one side of your uterus.
Some aches and pains are not normal, and require medical attention. A lower back pain or cramps that come and go regularly, and/or are accompanied by blood or watery discharge from your vagina, can indicate preterm labor. Get medical attention immediately.
Less serious, but still requiring medical attention, is backache accompanied by burning or painful urination. It’s probably a urinary tract infection, which is painful but easy to treat with antibiotics from your doctor.
What’s Happening With Baby?
Being a new mom is full of gross moments. A whole new world of pee, poop, spit up, burps, drool, and weird bodily fluids you didn’t even realize an adorable newborn could possibly make, await you.
Let us expose you early, to raise your squeamish level. Trust us, you’ll thank us – squeamishness isn’t going to fly with your newborn. Baby’s kidney start making urine this week, which means baby can pee into the amniotic fluid. And if you remember what was happening last week, baby just learned how to swallow and is busily drinking the amniotic fluid too.
Fine hair called lanugo covers all of your baby’s skin, and over that is a white, fatty, slimy substance called vernix caseosa that’s like lip balm for your baby. These prevent your baby’s skin from chapping and being scratched.
Baby can make conscious movements like shaking their head, flexing their arms and legs, and sucking their thumb. What is baby thinking? “Am I really drinking my own pee? No (shakes head) I don’t think so…”
Tags: backache, breast size, cramps, lanugo, ligament pain, placenta, preterm labor, Second Trimester, urinary tract infection, vernix caseosa, watery discharge, weight gain
