Pregnancy Stages

The development of a human baby, from conception to birth, inside your body, is a wonderful experience and even though that development has been well documented by today’s technology, nothing can prepare you fully for the unique experience that delivering a child into this world will bring to you. But you can learn about how your baby is developing along the way and what to expect as you journey through your pregnancy together.

It takes approximately 280 days for a baby to develop or 40 weeks, and after conception the remarkable developments that take place until birth, called pregnancy stages, are divided into three periods of time by medical practitioners.

During the first stage of pregnancy, from 0-12 weeks, your conceived egg changes into an embryo at two weeks, and by eight weeks it has developed into a fetus, with all the organs formed and a beating heart, and is now being fed by you through your blood via the placenta and umbilical cord.

It’s no wonder, with all this going on, that the early weeks of pregnancy bring so many new feelings to mother-to-be. For women, this is probably the most changeable and emotional of all the pregnancy stages, and by the end of it, at 13 weeks, your baby measures about 8 cm and its head is now a third of its body.

In the second stage, before your 20-week scan, your baby has developed taste buds, loves sweet tastes, has doubled in size by 19 weeks to 19cm and your breasts are developing the first milk called colostrums. This second stage lasts from 13-25 weeks. From week 26 you may want to rub lots of vitamin E oil and moisturizers daily over your skin to help avoid stretch marks.

In the last weeks of the pregnancy stages, from 26-40 weeks, you will both grow rather quickly, and you will tire easily. By 28 weeks, your baby weighs about 2lbs 3 oz, can open and close its eyes, and at 35 weeks, your baby responds to light. At 40 weeks you will be ready to deliver.