Your baby now weighs about the same as a pineapple 1.9kg and measures 43.7cm (head to heel)…
YOUR GROWING BABY
Your baby is gaining is about 220g (8 oz) a week and the skinny, wrinkled look is becoming a thing of the past.
Your baby’s skeleton is continuing to harden but the bones in the skull will not fuse together. This is to allow them to move and slightly overlap whilst travelling through the birth canal. (The pressure during birth is so intense that many babies are born with a cone-shaped head). These bones don’t entirely fuse until around two years of age.
Your baby has probably moved into the birth position with the head downwards and may descend further into your pelvis at any time within the next six weeks.
During the last 12 weeks of pregnancy, antibodies, which help fight infection, are passed from you into your baby through the placenta. Babies born prematurely are at greater risk of infection, as they have not had the same transfer of antibodies to them in the last weeks of pregnancy.
WHAT’S HAPPENING TO YOU
As your baby fills out it may become more and more difficult to find an easy position to sit and sleep in. You may also be doing rather a lot of waddling and bumping into things.
If your hands and fingers swell, pressure may be put on the carpal tunnel that houses the tendons and nerves that run to the fingers.
This can result in pins and needles and numbness in your fingers and may cause pain to radiate from the wrist to the forearm. In severe cases you may need to see a physiotherapist who may suggest that you wear splints on the wrists at night.
NEED TO KNOW
Things for you to consider during week 33 of your pregnancy:
- Try sleeping with your hands raised on a pillow to prevent fluid from building up.
- Take frequent breaks if you work at a keyboard so that you can flex the fingers and rotate the wrists to exercise them.
- Make sure you include omega-3 fatty acids (DHA) in your diet. Found mainly in oily fish such as salmon and mackerel, DHA is crucial for your baby’s brain and vision development. Up to a maximum of two portions of oily fish per week is recommended in pregnancy.
- If you are finding it hard to sleep at night, develop a winding-down routine before bedtime. Try a candle-lit bath with some lavender oil added to make you sleepy, listen to relaxing music and have a milky drink before you go to bed.