What baby does in womb

Fetal development: What your baby's up to in the womb

When I was pregnant with my son, my two-year-old daughter, Carly, would plant her face against the mound of my belly and talk to the baby within. “Hi, baby,” she’d say. “Is it dark in there?”

If only Ben could have answered her question. By the time he was talking, his stay in my belly was a distant memory. But, for many years now, researchers have been trying to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of what babies feel, taste, hear and see in the womb. And their findings are beginning to have an impact on how we keep babies healthy, both inside and outside of Mom’s tummy.

Baby’s sense of touch A baby’s senses begin to develop in a predictable order, says Heidelise Als, an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston. And the first to come on board is touch. By eight weeks of pregnancy, a fetus responds to touch around his lips and cheeks, and by 11 weeks, he has begun exploring his own body and his warm dark nest with his mouth, hands and feet. Ultrasound scans show babies “touching their buttocks, holding onto the umbilical cord, turning and walking up and down the amniotic sac wall on the inside,” says Als. “They are not passively quiet in the womb.”

In the nearly weightless, fluid-filled environment of the amniotic sac, Als believes the fetus uses touch to both soothe and teach himself. “Fetuses are laying down their own cortical networks in the brain,” she says. When babies are born prematurely, she points out, they continue to seek that interaction, but within a dramatically different environment: the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). But the hard surfaces of the incubators neither yield to them nor cradle them. “You will see these little preemies trying to bring their hands together or bring their hands to their face, or lay them over their head and their ear,” says Als. “They search, literally, with their feet to try to find a boundary.”

The unborn child reacts strongly to his mother’s movements as well. Most moms notice that when they touch their belly, the baby kicks back or responds in some way, says Als. “If it’s a firm touch, they may move away and stick out their arm,” as if to ward you off.

Research shows that unborn infants respond to more than just physical touch—they respond to their mother’s emotional state as well. When mothers watch sad films, babies move less. But when a mother laughs, says Als, ultrasound images show that “the baby kind of trampoline bounces.” When she laughs harder, the baby bounces even more exuberantly. “It’s fascinating,” she says. “There’s such an interaction between mother and child on all levels.”

Message to Mom: The atmosphere in your womb is perfect for your baby to explore and learn, says Als. But since babies clearly react to their mothers’ moods, it’s good to try to keep stress levels to a minimum. If you have a high-stress job or are at a particularly hairy point in your life, you might want to take up meditation or some other activity that helps you regain your calm.

Baby’s taste recognition Whether your child grows up to be a cookie monster or adores curry may have something to do with what you eat during your pregnancy. By the second trimester, your fetus’s taste buds look just like those of a mature adult, and the amniotic fluid surrounding her can carry the odour of curry, garlic, anise or vanilla, for example.

“Research has shown us that not only is the machinery [to] there,” says professor Julie Mennella, a biopsychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, “but infants will respond differently to a flavour they experienced in amniotic fluid as well as in the mother’s milk.” For example, when Mennella randomly assigned a group of mothers to either drink carrot juice regularly during pregnancy or lactation, or to avoid carrots, she found that “the babies who had experienced the flavour of carrots either in amniotic fluid or in mother’s milk were more accepting of that food at weaning. ” Other studies have found that babies make less negative faces in response to the smell of foods like garlic or anise if their mothers ate the food while pregnant.

Mennella’s theory is that fetuses form memories of flavours from being exposed to them in the womb. “During the last trimester, a fetus swallows up to a litre of amniotic fluid a day,” she points out. The fluid flows over the olfactory receptors in their noses and the taste buds in their mouths, and may act as a “flavour bridge” to breastmilk, and then to table food.

That doesn’t mean your infant’s sense of taste is fully developed before birth. Although doctors have noted that a 35-week-old preemie will suck harder on a sweetened nipple than on a plain rubber one, babies are born unable to detect the taste of salt. That particular taste experience doesn’t become known to them until about four months after they are born. It’s the brain that is perceiving this, says Mennella. “The sense of taste continues to develop throughout childhood and adolescence. ”

Message to Mom: You’re definitely eating for two and your baby is learning about your food choices, so try to eat a healthy diet. But don’t stress unduly if you can’t bring yourself to choke down some spinach. “Our biology is not necessarily our destiny,” Mennella explains. “A child can learn to like green vegetables.”

I hear you! Your fetus’s ears begin to function while he’s still firmly ensconced in your womb. Ears are well developed at about 20 weeks’ gestation, according to Barbara Kisilevsky, a professor in the School of Nursing at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.

By 26 or 27 weeks, fetuses respond to sound and vibration applied to mom’s belly. “They will move or their heart rate will change,” says Kisilevsky. By 30 to 32 weeks, they generally hear “airborne” noise, such as voices or music — you might notice they kick or startle to a door slamming or car backfiring.

In addition, they become accustomed to the soundscape of the womb — the steady thump of mom’s heartbeat, the whooshing of blood through her blood vessels, the rumbling of her stomach and, most importantly, the tones of her voice filtered through tissues, bones and fluid. Research on newborn infants shows that they will turn their head when they hear their mother’s voice more often than when they hear the voice of a female stranger, says Kisilevsky.

What’s more, infants seem to remember what they hear in the womb, preferring familiar pieces of music or books. In one famous experiment, a group of mothers read the Dr. Seuss story The Cat in the Hat out loud regularly during their pregnancy. At birth, their babies were hooked up to recordings which they could “select” by sucking on a non-nutritive nipple. After a few trials, babies learned to suck at whatever speed was necessary to obtain their mother’s voice reading the familiar story. “They wouldn’t understand the meaning of the words,” says Als. “But they like the mood and the familiar rhythms of the music or the words.”

There’s even evidence that the roots of bilingualism go as far back as the womb. A study published last year by University of British Columbia psychology professor Janet Werker and her colleagues found that the rhythm of a mother’s language helps prepare her infant for language development once the baby is born. Newborns sucked more on a pacifier hooked up to a computer when they heard their mother’s native tongue, the researchers noted, indicating that they were paying attention. If their mother spoke two languages, the newborns showed equal interest in both, but if the mother spoke only one, they ignored the unfamiliar language.

Message to Mom: So does that mean you should strap an iPod to your belly and blast some Mozart, or perhaps L’Etranger in French? “I don’t think we know enough to say whether that’s going to make a difference,” says Kisilevsky. “Music and voice are already often a part of our environment. To my knowledge, there’s nothing that shows it makes a difference whether you listen to Mozart or heavy metal.”

A warmer welcome for preemies The womb, says Harvard professor Heidelise Als, is such an ideal environment for the unborn child that leaving it too soon can have a lifelong impact, particularly on the youngest preemies, who face a higher risk of physical, psychological and intellectual problems.

Als has spent much of her life trying to see, hear and feel the world through the eyes, ears and fragile skin of premature babies. As she sees it, these teensy newcomers are basically launched out of a warm, dark bath into a chaotic environment of glaring fluorescent lights, hard surfaces and cacophonous sounds, and their brains are not yet wired to deal with it. So Als advocates trying to recreate, as much as possible, the nurturing womb environment for preterm babies born in hospitals.

For starters, she has managed to persuade the hospitals she works with around the world to keep the lights low in NICUs, covering incubators with a blanket to block out the light, and using task lighting for medical procedures. In addition, she advocates surrounding preemies with a nest of blankets, keeping noise levels to a minimum, and simply keeping preemies’ needs foremost when caring for them.

In the long run, Als would like to see NICUs kept very warm (at least 25 to 27°C) and incubators go the way of the dodo bird. Premature babies (even those hooked up to oxygen) should be allowed to cuddle skin to skin with their parents, she believes, touching or licking the mother’s skin with their hands, mouth and feet. Although it’s impossible to recreate conditions in the womb exactly, Als contends, “we can do much better.”

A womb with a view? To finally answer Carly’s question: Yes, it is dark in there. An unborn infant, says Als, is basically peering through a fog of amniotic fluid into a dark cave. It’s possible that a bright light might filter through to the womb but, to the infant, it probably means the difference between dim and dimmer.

Although your fetus is not seeing much, she is developing and perfecting the “equipment” she needs to see. By 23 to 25 weeks, a baby’s eyeballs are formed and she begins to blink. Another five weeks or so and her pupils have begun to contract in response to a bright light. The infant begins to exercise those visual muscles in preparation for a time when she will see, says Als. “They have a lot of eye movements and those movements have been found to be very important for visual brain development.”

In fact, Als believes that when fetuses are born too soon, their brains are not prepared for signals from their eyes to be transmitted into the frontal lobes of the brain. She fears that when a premature baby is forced to see (as well as touch, smell, taste and hear) too much too soon, the overstimulation can lead to aberrations in brain development, perhaps partially accounting for the fact that children born prematurely face higher rates of ADHD, learning disabilities and other disorders.

Message to Mom: Your full-term baby will take care of his visual needs all on his own, but Als is doing her best to make NICUs a little more like the womb.

This article was originally published on Mar 14, 2011

What's It Like in the Womb?

Jesse Rapp wasn't born until May, but he and his parents were playing together long before that.

At night, Morgan often rested his head on Richele's pregnant belly, calling Jesse by name and feeling him wriggle in response. Sometimes the couple would play games. They'd gently poke first one side of Richele's abdomen, then the other, and watch as Jesse followed their touch by poking the same side back. They even teased him by poking the same side twice and laughed as he poked the "wrong" side back.

All their prenatal shenanigans paid off. In the recovery room, it seemed abundantly clear Jesse recognized his parents right away, turning his head in their direction when either one spoke. When he cried, he'd calm down instantly at the sound of their voices.

"It was so exciting because there was this trust and communication and a certain sense of bonding between us right away," says Morgan Rapp. "And for him, I think, it was reassuring because he had a sense already of where he was."

Thanks to ultrasound and other high-tech tools allowing a peek inside the womb, scientists have discovered a virtual sensory playground in which your baby is living. The fetus responds to your voice and other sounds in the room, reacts to light and dark shadows as you move from place to place, tumbles as you switch positions, even tastes sweet or spicy foods you've just eaten.

Experts believe these experiences cause physiological changes in your fetus' sensory systems that are necessary for normal brain growth. But the question is: Is more better?

There's already an array of tapes and gadgets on the market that help parents talk, sing or pipe classical music into the womb via little speakers on the uterus. One researcher has even developed a "curriculum" designed to speak to the fetus and supposedly boost intelligence, coordination and well-being.

Don't feel pressured to pull out the credit card just yet.

Most researchers studying fetal development say Mother Nature and the stimuli your baby naturally receives in the womb from your everyday conversations and activities are good enough to prepare your baby for the outside world. Study of how the human brain develops still is in its infancy, but there's no convincing scientific evidence that deliberate fetal acoustic stimulation, as it's called, influences intelligence, creativity or later development.

"Nature does a pretty good job of programming or presenting the necessary kinds of stimulation that a fetus should get at the appropriate times during development," says William Fifer, a developmental psychobiologist at Columbia University. In fact, experts worry that sticking speakers or headphones up to your abdomen could actually disrupt your baby's sleep patterns or the natural order of growth.

If there's any benefit to spending time talking to your baby or letting your favorite music filter naturally through the uterine wall, it's as much for the parents as for the baby, they say. "I think most of the purpose of talking to your baby is to give people a chance to sort of attach, to get used to the fact that this new creature is going to be a big part of your life," says Fifer.

Look Who's Listening

Your baby's hearing is intact by the third trimester, when sonograms show that a fetus will actually turn its head to respond to a sound. But studies have shown that your unborn child can hear sounds as early as 20 weeks and will be startled by loud noises at about 25 weeks. Very loud sounds can cause changes in your baby's heart rate and movements, and sometimes even cause them to empty their bladders.

Instead of the womb being the quiet place scientists once assumed, it is actually awash in sounds, particularly the whooshing of your blood and digestive system, the thumping of your heart and your voice, which sounds louder than it would transmitted through the air since it reverberates through the bones and fluids in your body.

Noises from outside your body are more muffled but they also make it through surprisingly clearly, says Robert Abrams, a fetal physiologist in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at University of Florida. Low frequency sounds, such as those above middle C, tend to be more audible than higher frequency ones. Men's voices, for instance, come through clearer than women's, and music also is easily recognizable.

It appears the fetus can even hear specific speech patterns and intonations, although probably not recognize words themselves, Fifer says. Some studies have shown that babies after birth will recognize -- and be comforted by -- a story read repeatedly to them while in the womb or even by particular songs, like the theme from a television show watched regularly during pregnancy.

Much has been made of the benefits of playing classical music to children because it supposedly enhances spatial development. Why not, some speculate, do the same for the unborn child?

Indeed, fetuses breathe in time to music they enjoy, according to Dr. Rene Van de Carr, a California OB-Gyn who teaches parents how to stimulate unborn babies through music and other exercises at the Prenatal University in Hayward, Calif. He is also author of "While You're Expecting ... Your Own Prenatal Classroom. "

Dr. Van de Carr claims such aural stimulation not only increases neural connections in the brain and enhances brain growth, but encourages parents to be more attentive and interactive and sets expectations for achievement later on. He suggests expectant parents stimulate their babies for about five to 10 minutes twice a day. The key is not to get too repetitive with any one activity or the baby will tune it out, he says.

Yet much of the hullabaloo over the so-called Mozart effect has been exaggerated, says Janet DiPietro, a developmental psychologist who studies fetal development at Johns Hopkins University. The research has been done primarily on adults, and the only children that have been studied were 3- and 4-year-olds, who were actually playing the music on keyboards rather than simply listening to it.

And many experts say the jury's still out on whether it's in-utero interventions -- or simply genetics and a nurturing environment after birth -- that make your baby smarter, more musically inclined or better adjusted.

"I tell people that if they like classical music then play it, but if they don't, then don't," says DiPietro. "It think it's irrelevant to the fetus, unless the mom likes to come home, put her feet up and turn on music that's relaxing to her. That's the way the baby gets the effect."

Get Those Brussels Sprouts Outta Here

Your baby's sense of touch begins to develop early in pregnancy as it explores the uterine wall, umbilical cord and even its own body parts, spending the most time touching its face. As early as the ninth week, your baby will respond when its lips or areas around the mouth are touched. By the eighth month, it moves towards the source with mouth open, the beginnings of the rooting reflex, which the baby needs to begin nursing and sucking on a bottle after birth.

Smell and taste are often hard to separate, so they're described as chemosensations. Just try sucking on a Jelly Belly while plugging up your nose, suggests Julie Mennella, a psychobiologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. From about the fourth month of pregnancy, the fetus is gulping and inhaling a variety of foods you've eaten through the amniotic fluid, and by the third trimester, your baby can tell whether it's bitter, sweet, sour or even garlicky, and will show preferences for certain tastes.

Researchers say that learning about tastes and smells in the womb are actually preparing your baby for life after birth. Not only are newborns comforted by their mother's smell, which is likely introduced first through the amniotic fluid, but they're already familiar in the same way with the taste of mother's breast milk. Some animal studies even suggest that the more varied a pregnant mom's diet, the more open the offspring will be to different foods.

Fetuses also begin to develop a sense of balance from their movements in utero. Not only are they gently tumbling and floating in the amniotic fluid, but your own movements will cause the baby's position to change. Those movements stimulate a structure in the ear that helps the brain process information about motion and body position. By 25 weeks the fetus displays a righting reflex, which may be responsible for most babies turning head down before delivery.

This motion also stimulates emotional changes in your baby. You may notice that your baby is more still when you're very active, and then at night becomes active when you're still. Once your baby is born, you'll probably find that when they're fussy, you can quiet them by rocking them, reminiscent of the movements they experienced in the womb.

Your baby's sight is the last sense to be developed and won't be fine-tuned until after birth, but growth inside the womb begins early. The eye pockets form by about five weeks of pregnancy, and by the fourth month, the eyes are almost completely formed. Your baby's eyelids won't open until the seventh month, when the fetus will begin opening and closing them and rolling the eyes around, as if testing them out. A bright light can penetrate the uterus and may make the fetus more active.

Finding the Edge

When Kurt and Cathy Meyer of Fishers, Ind. , were expecting their daughter, who was born almost a year ago, they did everything they could to give Marie a running start. They read to her. They talked to her. They even researched all the different prenatal stimulation products on the market.

They settled on BabyPlus, a "cardiac curriculum" developed by Seattle developmental psychologist Brent Logan. The 16-tape series of audio tapes deliver sonic patterns to stimulate the fetus' nervous system and exercise its developing brain.

"We were looking for every possible competitive edge for our child," says Kurt Meyer. "From a parent's perspective, if you deprive your child of any opportunity to learn, you haven't done your job."

It's hard to prove the effect BabyPlus had on Marie. But the couple is convinced the prenatal stimulation allowed her to sleep better after birth and reach developmental milestones, like saying words and understanding when others spoke to her, faster.

"We have a lady who watches her three days a week, a mother of two who watches three other children about the same age as Marie, and almost a week doesn't go by when she hasn't told us that Marie is doing something, where the other kids aren't quite there yet," says Meyer, who owns a commercial real estate company.

The BabyPlus system consists of a belt with two tiny speakers fastened onto the mother's abdomen for two one-hour periods per day over 16 weeks in the second trimester. The series of tapes features an imitation of the mother's heartbeat, only the rhythms get progressively more complicated and faster with each tape. The cost of the system is $180.

"Since we knew the mother's blood pulse is serving as the fetus' most elementary instruction, why not create a more intelligent heart, an orchestrated heart, that would be able to provide successive progressions of schooling?" Logan says.

He says stimulating additional brain connections early is particularly important since a significant portion of brain cells naturally die off in the later stage of pregnancy. "Like exercising a muscle, by getting the fetal brain to oscillate faster at more mature rhythms, you're able to lock into place a more mature brain," he says.

But Fifer and other experts say there's no scientific data supporting these claims and worry that fiddling with this timing by amplifying sound with speakers or headphones into the womb could be disruptive to your baby's sleep patterns, and even harmful. For most of the pregnancy, your baby sleeps about 95 percent of the time, even as you feel it moving or hiccupping.

He also worries the stimuli could confound the timing of brain development established through years of evolution. "The message is that it's not a good thing to lose these extra brain cells, when in fact that's how nature programs things ... to make room for the connections and wiring that turn a brain into a mind," says Fifer.

"We actually know very little about the developing brain and the environment it needs to develop well," agrees DiPietro. "No one would argue that you wouldn't stick a speaker next to a newborn baby when they're sound asleep and blast music in its ear."

The same goes for the fetus. "We have no idea what it's doing to the developing brain, and to assume it's a good thing is really foolish. It's much more likely to be interfering with normative brain development," DiPietro says. There's even some research showing that fetus will tune out repetitive external stimuli.

DiPietro puts the concept of prenatal stimulation right up there with flash cards and early reading programs -- that it puts even more pressure on parents to overstimulate their kids.

"When you start trying to create kind of a super baby before they're even born, you set up a bad dynamic between parents and children," she says. "You're expecting a baby to be a certain way. Why not wait until the baby's born, see who they are, then try to support their particular needs and abilities."

What does a child do while it is in the mother’s stomach

August 17, 2018

In 9 months, a child goes a long way from a tiny embryo to a chubby baby and already in the womb acquires some features that will remain with him for life: for example, you can understand whether he will become right-handed or left-handed and what kind of food he will prefer. In a fairly short period of time, a lot of interesting things happen to a child, and today we invite you to go through the path from birth to birth with your baby.

1st trimester of pregnancy
1st–2nd week

So the long journey began. For the first 4 days, the future person is smaller than a grain of salt - its size is only 0.14 mm. However, starting from the 5th day, it begins to grow and by the 6th it almost doubles - up to as much as 0.2 mm. On the 4th day, the embryo "comes" to where it will spend the next 9 months - into the uterus, and on the 8th day it is implanted in its wall.

3rd–4th week

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Embryo at the 4th week of pregnancy.

Around the 20th day of pregnancy, a very important event occurs: the neural tube appears, which will then turn into the spinal cord and brain of the child. Already on the 21st day, his heart begins to beat and all important organs, such as the kidneys and liver, begin to form. The eyes have not yet taken their usual position - the bubbles from which they will then take shape are located on the sides of the head. By the end of the 1st month, the embryo has a circulatory system, and the spine and muscles begin to develop.

5th–6th week

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At the 5th week, the hands appear in the embryo, however, the fingers are still very difficult to distinguish, but in the joints the arms and legs are already bent. It was at this time that the external genitalia begin to form, but it is not yet possible to see on an ultrasound whether it is a boy or a girl. By the way, since its appearance, the embryo has grown a lot - it has increased by as much as 10 thousand times. Already now, the baby's face is beginning to form, and the eyes, which will be closed for a very long time, darken, becoming more human-like.

7th–8th week

The 7th week of pregnancy is the time when the baby begins to move, however, so far completely unnoticed by the mother, and the fingers and toes become almost the same as in adults. At this stage, the rudiments of milk teeth appear in the embryo and the reproductive system develops, and the kidneys begin to produce urine. Despite the fact that the growth of the fetus is only 2.5 cm, it acquires its own facial expressions, it has eyelids, and the tip of the nose becomes more defined.

9th–10th week

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Baby at 9-10 weeks of gestation.

By this time, the baby has already grown well - its weight is 4 grams, and its height is 2-3 cm. Despite its tiny size, the brain is already divided into two hemispheres, and milk teeth and taste buds are beginning to form. The baby's tail and membranes between the fingers on the hands disappear, he begins to swim in the amniotic fluid and move even more actively, although still unnoticed by the mother. It was at this time that the child's individual facial features appear, and hair begins to grow on the head.

11–12 weeks

At this time, the genital organs are formed in the child, so it is already possible to find out his sex on an ultrasound scan, although the probability of an error is still high. The child still looks a little alien: he has a big head and a small body, but his face is more and more like an adult. The ears are almost in the right position, eyebrows and eyelashes appear. The cartilage that makes up the skeleton gradually ossifies, new blood vessels appear, and hormone production begins. By the way, the baby has already grown up to 6 cm and weighs about 20 grams.

13th-14th week

Baby at 14 weeks pregnant.

Despite the fact that the child's head is half the length of the entire body, the face is more and more reminiscent of an adult, and the rudiments of all 20 milk teeth have already been formed in the oral cavity. The child is already able to put his finger in his mouth, but he will learn to suck a little later. Due to the active formation of blood vessels, the baby's skin is red and very thin, so vellus hair appears on the body - lanugo, which is necessary to maintain a special lubricant that protects against hypothermia.

2nd trimester of pregnancy
15th–16th week

By the 15th week, the baby has grown to 10 cm and is gaining weight - now he weighs about 70 grams. Despite the fact that the eyes are still quite low, the face is already quite recognizable, moreover, the child begins to “make faces”, since the facial muscles are well developed. By this time, he already knows how to suck his thumb, and the sebaceous and sweat glands begin their work.

17th–18th week

And finally, the child's auditory canals are formed, so he begins to distinguish sounds well and hears the mother's voice, moreover, he is able to recognize it. In addition to the milk teeth, the embryos of the molars also appear, the bones are finally formed and begin to harden. By the way, the bones of the skull will remain mobile until birth - when passing through the birth canal, they will overlap each other to make it easier for the baby to be born. But the mother is finally beginning to feel the movements of the child, who has grown to 14 cm and 190 grams.

19th-20th week

Baby at 20 weeks pregnant.

Despite the fact that the child's eyes are still closed, he is already well oriented in the surrounding space. Moreover, now you can understand whether the child will be right-handed or left-handed, because right now he begins to use his dominant hand more actively. Fingerprints appear on the baby's fingers - another unique sign of each of us. By the way, the child is already beginning to gradually distinguish day from night and is active at a certain time.

21–22 weeks

The 21st week is the time when the baby begins to gain weight due to the formation of subcutaneous fat. Soon, the folds that newborns have will appear on his arms and legs. On the 22nd week, those neurons are formed in the brain that will be with a person all his life. Very soon the child will open his eyes, he is already trying to do this, and the eyeballs move almost like an adult.

23–24 weeks

At 23 weeks, the baby may begin to dream, and his face is so formed that an ultrasound can determine whose facial features he has inherited. His skin becomes opaque, his eyes open, and the child can already react to light, moreover, bright flashes can scare him. By the 24th week, the baby grows to almost 30 cm, and its weight reaches 0.5 kg.

25th–26th week

At this time, the taste buds of the child are finally formed and, tasting the amniotic fluid, he can frown if he does not like it. By the way, this is how eating habits are formed - already in the womb we have our favorite and unloved foods. Very soon the child will learn to blink and can already see a little, however, so far it is very, very vague.

3rd trimester of pregnancy
27th–28th week

Baby at 27–28 weeks of gestation.

If you do an ultrasound at this time, you can see how the baby smiles and intensively sucks his thumb. At this time, the baby has the first "toy" - his own umbilical cord, and he actively studies his body. At the end of the 7th month of pregnancy, the child develops an individual metabolism, which he will have all his life. The baby is already quite large - his weight reaches 1.2 kg, and his height is 35 cm.

29th-30th week

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Baby at 30 weeks pregnant.

The layer of subcutaneous fat is increasing, and the baby is becoming more and more plump and well-fed. In addition, he already knows how to cry, cough, and even sometimes hiccups - this happens, most likely, when he swallows too much amniotic fluid. By the 30th week, the baby's brain is already so developed that it is quite capable of remembering and even analyzing information.

31–32 weeks

At this time, a person has all 5 senses, and his daily routine is more and more reminiscent of the one he will follow after birth. The child hears the work of all the organs of the mother, knows her voice perfectly, thanks to which, immediately after birth, he is able to distinguish her from all other people. The baby's immune system begins to produce antibodies that will protect him from all kinds of infections that may lie in wait in the first days and months after birth.

33–34th week

And finally, subcutaneous fat is already formed, and lanugo disappears from the body of the fetus. By this time, the baby has grown a lot - the length of his body reaches 40 cm, and the weight is very close to or even exceeds 2 kg. The baby's nervous system is already fully formed, but the lungs are still developing.

35th–36th week

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The child yawns. 3D ultrasound at 36 weeks pregnant.

At this time, the child looks almost exactly the same as when he was born. He is still quite thin, but the layer of subcutaneous fat is increasing more and more intensively. However, his hair and nails are already fully developed, and he himself becomes so big that he has almost no room to maneuver, so he can move less than in earlier stages.

37–38th week

And finally, the process of forming a person has finally ended - now he is completely ready for birth, and obstetricians consider the pregnancy to be full-term. Lanugo completely disappears from his body and can only sometimes remain on his arms and legs. Since there is almost no space left in the uterus, it may seem to the mother that the child has begun to move more intensively, but in fact the force of the blows has increased, because the child's muscles have already completely formed and strengthened.

39th–40th week

© depositphotos.com

The first minutes after birth.

The lungs of a child continue to form until the very birth, and only at the time of birth they release the right amount of surfactant - a substance that prevents the alveoli from sticking together after the first independent breath. Very soon, the baby will announce its birth with the first cry and begin its long journey through a large and interesting world.

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Child development by week | Regional Perinatal Center

Expectant mothers are always curious about how the fetus develops at a time when it is awaited with such impatience. Let's talk and look at the photos and pictures of how the fetus grows and develops week by week.

What does the puffer do for 9 whole months in mom's tummy? What does he feel, see and hear?

Let's start the story about the development of the fetus by weeks from the very beginning - from the moment of fertilization. A fetus up to 8 weeks old is called embryo , this occurs before the formation of all organ systems.

Embryo development: 1st week

The egg is fertilized and begins to actively split. The ovum travels to the uterus, getting rid of the membrane along the way.

On the 6th-8th days, implantation of eggs is carried out - implantation into the uterus. The egg settles on the surface of the uterine mucosa and, using the chorionic villi, attaches to the uterine mucosa.

Embryo development: 2-3 weeks

Picture of embryo development at 3 weeks.

The embryo is actively developing, starting to separate from the membranes. At this stage, the beginnings of the muscular, skeletal and nervous systems are formed. Therefore, this period of pregnancy is considered important.

Embryo development: 4–7 weeks

Fetal development by week in pictures: week 4

Fetal development by week photo: week 4

Photo of an embryo before the 6th week of pregnancy.

The heart, head, arms, legs and tail are formed in the embryo :) . Gill slit is defined. The length of the embryo at the fifth week reaches 6 mm.

Fetal development by week photo: week 5

At the 7th week, the rudiments of the eyes, stomach and chest are determined, and fingers appear on the handles. The baby already has a sense organ - the vestibular apparatus. The length of the embryo is up to 12 mm.

Fetal development: 8th week

Fetal development by week photo: week 7-8

The face of the fetus is determined, you can distinguish the mouth, nose, auricles. The head of the embryo is large and its length corresponds to the length of the body; the fetal body is formed. All significant, but not yet fully formed, elements of the baby's body already exist. The nervous system, muscles, skeleton continue to improve.

Fetal development in the photo already sensitive arms and legs: week 8

The fetus developed skin sensitivity in the mouth area (preparation for the sucking reflex), and later in the face and palms.

At this stage of pregnancy, the genitals are already visible. Gill slits die. The fruit reaches 20 mm in length.

Fetal development: 9–10 weeks

Fetal development by week photo: week 9

Fingers and toes already with nails. The fetus begins to move in the pregnant woman's stomach, but the mother does not feel it yet. With a special stethoscope, you can hear the baby's heartbeat. Muscles continue to develop.

Fetal development by weeks photo: week 10

The entire surface of the fetal body is sensitive and the baby develops tactile sensations with pleasure, touching his own body, the walls of the amniotic sac and the umbilical cord. It is very curious to observe this on ultrasound. By the way, the baby first moves away from the ultrasound sensor (of course, because it is cold and unusual!), And then puts his hands and heels trying to touch the sensor.

It's amazing when a mother puts her hand to her stomach, the baby tries to master the world and tries to touch with his pen "from the back".

fetal development: 11–14 weeks

Development of the fetus in the photo of the legs: Week 11

In the baby, the legs, legs and eyelids are formed, and the genitals become distinguishable (you can find out the floor child). The fetus begins to swallow, and if something is not to its taste, for example, if something bitter gets into the amniotic fluid (mother ate something), then the baby will begin to frown and stick out his tongue, making less swallowing movements.

Fruit skin appears translucent.

Fruit development: Week 12

Photo of the fetus 12 weeks on 3D ultrasound

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DEVELOPMENT OF NEXTS Photo: Week 140150 9000 9000 urine. Blood forms inside the bones. And hairs begin to grow on the head. Moves more coordinated.