What’s going on?
Morning sickness may be easing up for you starting this week as your appetite increases to nourish your growing baby. The blood vessels in your placenta are also increasing in size and number to provide more nutrients to your baby.
Baby at Week 11
At 4cm long and weighing approximately a quarter of an ounce, your baby is working hard at growing this week. While it will be a while until you find out baby’s gender, the ovaries have started developing if you are expecting a girl.
By Week 11, your baby is already quite well developed – with hands and feet in place, ears almost in their final shape and position, open nasal passages on the tip of the nose, a tongue and palate in the mouth, as well as visible nipples. In addition, hair follicles are starting to form on the crown of their head.
Your baby’s body is starting to straighten and become more proportionate, although his/her head still makes up a third of the overall length. He/she is also having the time of his/her life in utero by wriggling, stretching and rolling in your womb, although you won’t be able to feel anything yet. As your baby’s diaphragms form, he/she is also bound to have frequent episodes of hiccups.
What is mum up to?
Although progesterone is doing a great job in ensuring that everything goes well in your pregnancy, it does come with some undesirable effects such as bloating, burping and passing gas. Progesterone relaxes the muscle tissue in your body, including the gastrointestinal tract, which in turn slows down digestion to allow more time for the nutrients from food to be absorbed into the bloodstream before it gets passed on to your baby.
Despite all the discomfort that you are feeling, your baby will not be affected or feel any pain. In fact, he/she may even find the gurgling due to your gastrointestinal activities soothing. On the other hand, you can minimise bloating and gas by eating small, frequent meals and staying away from gas-producing foods such as beans and fried foods.
Top tips for Week 11
If you are feeling a bit stressed with this whole pregnancy thing, know that it is normal to feel this way. After all, your body is changing faster than you can keep up and there is now a tiny being growing inside of you.
Exercise is highly-recommended by health experts to combat pregnancy stress, and it can help you to sleep better too. Here are some exercises that you can do to ease the stress away:
- Yoga
- Swimming
- Walking
- Low-impact floor exercises
READ NEXT
