Fetal Development Week by Week – Week 13

As you near the end of the first trimester, your baby is almost 3 inches long and weighs about ½ an ounce.  At this point you are probably ready for looser fitting clothing, soon you won’t fit into your regular clothes at all.

The baby’s face is looking more and more human.  The eyes have moved closer together and the ears are near their normal position on the side of the head.  The head now rests on it’s neck as opposed to the shoulders and is still roughly half the entire length of the body.

Right now, your baby’s heart is pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day.  At birth about 300 quarts of blood per day are pumped.  The liver is making bile and is supervising the activity of the fully working spleen.  The spleen removes old red blood cells and produces antibodies.  Your baby is able to absorb sugar, or glucose, at this point.

A girl will have about 2 million eggs inside her ovaries at this time, although by birth this number will drop down to about 1 million, and when she older – around 17, she’ll have a mere 200,000 eggs. 

The fetus is rapidly acquiring reflexes they will respond to touching the palms by closing their fingers, or curling their toes if you tickled their feet.  Sweat glands are beginning to emerge and veins remain very visible, since the skin is still very thin.

Your health practitioner can feel the top of your uterus, or fundus, when they push on your abdomen.  You haven’t reached the advanced stages of pregnancy yet, so you are probably still pretty comfortable and many of the early pregnancy symptoms (such as morning sickness) should begin to diminish at this point.  At this point in your pregnancy the risk of miscarriage greatly decreases.

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