Now you are slowly moving towards the second trimester of your pregnancy with 12 weeks of being pregnant. You will now feel that your baby is a little busy as the size of your belly is increasing. Inside of your uterus, all the vital organs or the baby are in their place by now, including the sex organs. Although it is still too early to know the sex of the baby, but if you want to know, your healthcare provider can tell you the same with a mid-pregnancy ultrasound scan so that you have enough time to decide the name.
Even more exciting news is that now you can hear your baby’s heartbeat with an external Doppler device. Now even though the eyelids of your baby are fully formed, but they are still fused together and will not separate till the late of second trimester. There is also another strange thing going on that your baby’s hands are a bit more developed than their legs. So, at this point the arms are longer than the legs. The little nail beds have started developing fingernails and toenails by now which will continue to grow till next trimester. You might not notice it, but little movements have already started inside your womb.
How Big Is Your Baby?
The size of your baby is close to passion fruit which means approximately 2.5 inches and weighing almost 0.5 ounce.
Mom’s Body at 12 Weeks Pregnant
Now since the nausea and morning sickness has started to disappear, you will notice that you are getting your appetite back. Be sure that you eat enough and take a proper, balanced and healthy diet. Don’t confuse that since a human is developing inside you, you need the food for two. Experts usually recommend only 300 extra calories a day, on an average. But if you want more help with this, you can contact your paediatrician or healthcare provider for a more detailed advice on what to eat.
12 Weeks Pregnant: Your Symptoms
- Bleeding and Sensitive Gums: As your blood level increases, you may find that your gums are swollen and even bleed when you brush or floss. This is completely normal and there is so need to change your brushing and flossing pattern. To get relieve from this symptom, you can try using softer brush.
- Feeling Lightheaded: Since your body has started to produce more blood vessels, you might feel dizzy from time to time. You can wear loose clothing, keep yourself hydrated, avoid standing for long and eat healthy regularly, to soothe from the dizziness.
- Sensitivity to Smells: Your sense of smell can be sensitive at this stage of pregnancy and if certain odours bother you then you can try eating cold or room-temperature food. You can ask someone else to cook for you.
- Bloating: Hormonal changes within you at this stage of pregnancy and your growing uterus might make you feel as if you are bloating, and again, this is completely natural.
- Spotting or Bleeding: At anytime during your pregnancy if you find that you are bleeding, especially accompanied by cramping, you should immediately contact your healthcare provider.
12 Weeks Pregnant: Things to Consider
- Make sure that you follow a healthy and balanced diet plan during this stage of pregnancy. Include proteins like meat, chicken, fish, or plant based substitutes. You might also want to include wide variety of vegetables to provide you the nutrients and calcium-rich food.
- Start doing Kegel exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles that support your uterus and bladder. Kegel exercises are very easy to do, you just have to squeeze your pelvic floor muscles by contracting the muscles as if you are holding the flow of urine, hold it for few seconds and leave. You should aim for at least 3 sets of 20 reps each day.
- This is a good time to start writing your pregnancy journal and noting down all the exciting milestones that you have covered so that you can look back at this beautiful journey after the baby is born.
- Start looking for baby names.
12 weeks of pregnancy is a great milestone as you are ending your first trimester and moving towards the second one. You might be excited as now you can actually hear the heartbeats of the hums inside you and finally start to feel that you are, in fact going to be a mother soon. Make sure that you keep checking your symptoms and if there is anything abnormal, feel free to contact your healthcare provider. You can now even start to plan and share the news with your friends and colleagues because soon, people will start noticing the physical changes in you.
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