You might feel more energetic and confident about your pregnancy now, but remember some of the early pregnancy niggles like heartburn, indigestion and constipation can start to bother you again this week. Also, you might be due for an anomaly scan this week. Read here to know what an anomaly scan is.
Changes that happen to your body
With your baby-bump now showing, your body is facing enough changes and challenges to deal with.
Your centre of gravity shifts: With your belly protruding out, your centre of gravity now shifts slightly; this makes postural correction crucial at this point of time. Bad posture now can aggravate backache and make it severe with every passing day. Along with this shift in the centre of gravity, the hormone relaxin that is secreted in abundance, loosens the joints, making one more prone to common aches and pains during pregnancy. To counter this consciously try and keep your spine erect whether you are seated or standing. Also wearing high heels during pregnancy can aggravate backache, it's better to give it a miss. Know why you shouldn't wear heels during pregnancy.
You may suffer from constipation and heartburn: With increase in the progesterone levels, constipation can still pose to be a problem. As your baby grows and the uterus moves outside, the intestine is also pushed upward towards the abdomen. This process in turn makes the intestine cramped for space leading to slower digestion. A heavy and untimely meal now can lead to symptoms of heartburn and acidity easily. To deal with this, have six meals throughout the day and avoid having heavy meals.
Your feet might swell: Edema or swelling of the feet and ankles during the second trimester is very common. This is a harmless condition that happens due to water retention in the body. The best way to deal with this is to up your water intake to flush out excess water. Also make sure you don't stand for long hours or walk around too much. This will make your feet and ankles swell. If your work needs you to sit for long hours, remember to rest often or use a stool to prop up your feet. At night place pillows beneath your legs to keep your feet elevated and avoid fluid retention. Know about other ways of dealing with edema.
You might have food cravings: Sometime during the second trimester your hunger pangs can get the better of you and cravings inevitable. This is because with your baby growing within you, your nutritional needs increase manifold. Make sure whatever you eat is healthy and not junk. Eating without giving the food a thought can lead to excessive weight gain and cause pregnancy induced complications that can come in the way of a smooth labour and childbirth. Also read common mistakes women make during pregnancy.
Development of your baby
While your body tries its best to cope with the demands of your pregnancy here's what happens to your baby:
Your baby's bones gets stronger: Your baby's skeletal system strengthens and grows and now her legs are stronger than the week before. This means more somersaults, kicking, moving, twisting and rolling. Though you might not be able to sense all those movements now.
Your baby's hearing gets acute: With the bones in the inner ears also hardening, hearing becomes more acute this week onwards. Talking to your baby-bump now can help you establish an early bond with your unborn child. Continuous interaction with your baby will soon help her distinguish your voice from that of the others. Also read about the benefits of talking to your baby-bump.
Your baby's nervous system develops: Your baby's nervous system grows rapidly from 18th weeks onwards. The nerves in the brain are now making more complex connections and new ones are also being added in the process. The brain now also works on sharpening the five senses of your baby touch, sight, sound, smell and taste.
Your baby starts to yawn: If you are lucky you might pick up this action during your scheduled sonography along with other fetal movements.
With every passing week you baby grows in length and weighs a little more than the week before which indicates a healthy progress of your fetus's development. This week your baby measures approximately 140mm from crown-to-rump and weighs around 140 to 190g.
What you should be doing
If you wish to know what happened to your body while you reached week 18 of your pregnancy, you could read:
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