Week-by-week pregnancy guide — Week 33 of your pregnancy

Apart from weight gain, you might be suffering from insomnia and heartburn while your baby's skeletal system grows strong this week.

Debjani Arora | Updated: December 14, 2014 5:35 pm

As you near your delivery date, you might be thinking more about labour and everything else that would follow post childbirth. However, try not to stress yourself at this point in time. Instead, focus your energies on eating right and practise belly breathing that will do a lot good to you and your baby.

Here is what happens to you during this week

Insomnia: It is common in most women to experience sleepless nights during the third trimester. The bulging belly, excess weight, increased fetal movements, fatigue, among others, makes it difficult to sleep for hours at a stretch in a comfortable position. One thing that you can do to overcome this problem is have short naps throughout the day. Here are six ways in which you can sleep better during pregnancy.

Weight gain: Weight gain during the third trimester is crucial. You might be gaining anywhere between 0.5 to 0.75 g every week during your last trimester. Keep a tab on your weight gain as excessive weight gain now could indicate a problem or lead to complications during labour. Know how much weight gain is too much during pregnancy.

Swollen hands and feet: If you have been suffering from swollen hands and feet or edema during the early weeks of pregnancy, remember, it would just get worse by now. Water retention along with an increased blood flow and a sluggish circulation results in edema. One way to combat pregnancy induced edema is to avoid standing or walking for too long during these last weeks. Here are few tips to deal with edema during pregnancy.

Frequent urination: The bulging belly also puts a pressure on your bladder that forces you to use the restroom more often. This could also be one of the reasons you wake up in the middle of the night, which affects your sleep.

Heartburn: Though you might have experienced heartburn throughout your pregnancy, during the last weeks this symptom might just get aggravated. As the uterus expands, it pushes other vital organs up, which makes the digestive process sluggish and gives rise to heartburn and acidity. Here are few ways in which you can treat heartburn during pregnancy.

Anxiety: It is normal to feel tensed and anxious as your expected delivery date approaches. However, try to be calm and stay away from listening to other people’s horrific labour stories. Stress and anxiety at this time could inhibit production of oxytocin which could delay the process of ripening your cervix for labour. Here are nine ways to keep stress at bay during pregnancy.

Apart from these, you might also experience some other nagging problems of pregnancy like vaginal discharge, leaky breasts, lower abdominal cramps, constipation, hemerrhoids, backache, etc.

Development of your baby

Here is what happens to your baby this week:

Your baby takes the heads-down position: Your baby might have turned in a heads-down position where your baby’s head is resting on the pelvis, closer to your cervix. However, if your baby has not turned into a heads-down position yet, don’t panic, there is still time for labour. Talk to your doctor and learn about your baby’s progress. Sometimes yoga and exercise can help turn the baby into the heads-down position. Here are six ways in which you can turn your baby into the heads-down position for a natural delivery.

Your baby’s skeletal system develops: As fat tissues keep on adding beneath the skin, the bones start getting stronger and hard. However, your baby’s skull remains soft and flexible, so that it can pass through the vaginal cavity easily during the birthing process.

You baby is practising breathing: As the lungs mature, your baby practises breathing by taking in amniotic fluid through the nostrils in large amounts. This will help your baby breathe in air when out of the womb.

Your baby’s immune system develops: Your baby’s immune system is developing and receiving antibodies from you which will help ward-off infections once your baby is out of the womb.

This week your baby might be weighting around 2000 g and measure up to 500 mm from crown-to-rump.

What you should do:

Drink lots of water, as it will help flush out toxins from your system, keep your kidneys healthy and aid in fetal growth and development.

Keep a tab on fetal kicks. Feeling at least 10 kicks every two hours now, is a good indicator of fetal health. If you realise that the counts have decreased or notice any difference in the pattern of fetal movements, talk to your doctor about it.

Avoid lying on your back from now on, as this will reduce the blood circulation in the uterus, which isn’t a good sign during pregnancy.

With your centre of gravity being shifted, take enough care while you sit, stand, lie down or move around. A slip or fall at this time could be fatal.

Eat right and continue to practise your pre-natal exercises. Diet, exercises and breathing practise will help you undergo labour with minimal complications. Here are 10 pregnancy superfoods that your should include in your diet.

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Image source: Getty Images

Published: December 10, 2014 5:32 pm | Updated:December 14, 2014 5:35 pm

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