- Preparing for Pregnancy
- Diet and Exercise
- Emotional Wellbeing
- Health
- Antenatal Care
- Preganancy at 1-3 Weeks
- Preganancy at 4 Weeks
- Preganancy at 5 Weeks
- Preganancy at 6 Weeks
- Preganancy at 7 Weeks
- Preganancy at 8 Weeks
- Preganancy at 9 Weeks
- Preganancy at 10 Weeks
- Preganancy at 11 Weeks
- Preganancy at 12 Weeks
- Preganancy at 13 Weeks
- Preganancy at 14 Weeks
- Preganancy at 15 Weeks
- Preganancy at 16 Weeks
- Preganancy at 17 Weeks
- Preganancy at 18 Weeks
- Preganancy at 19 Weeks
- Preganancy at 20 Weeks
- Preganancy at 21 Weeks
- Preganancy at 22 Weeks
- Preganancy at 23 Weeks
- Preganancy at 24 Weeks
- Preganancy at 25 Weeks
- Preganancy at 26 Weeks
- Preganancy at 27 Weeks
- Preganancy at 28 Weeks
- Preganancy at 29 Weeks
- Preganancy at 30 Weeks
- Preganancy at 31 Weeks
- Preganancy at 32 Weeks
- Preganancy at 33 Weeks
- Preganancy at 34 Weeks
- Preganancy at 35 Weeks
- Preganancy at 36 Weeks
- Preganancy at 37 Weeks
- Preganancy at 38 Weeks
- Preganancy at 39 Weeks
- Preganancy at 40 Weeks
- Labour and Birth
- The First Few Days
Pregnancy at 5 Weeks
Your period is now overdue, so your pregnancy may just have been confirmed. You may not feel any different, but a tremendous amount of activity is going on inside your uterus. At first the hormone progesterone is produced by the discarded follicle to prevent womb lining from shedding. Later the placenta will produce progesterone in order to sustain the pregnancy.
For a small number of women (about 1 in 200 in the UK), the fertilized egg starts to develop outside the uterus, usually in a Fallopian tube. This is known as an ectopic pregnancy (see page 108). It is often detected around this stage but may still become apparent up until 10 weeks.
Development
The tiny embryo that will become your baby has a head end and a tail end. By this time all the building blocks for your baby's vital organs are in place. The central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) has already started to form. A basic circulation has begun to work, from you to your baby, and tiny blood vessels are now forming. The embryo is taking oxygen via the developing placenta, and the bag of membranes (the amniotic sac) is also developing. This will contain the water (amniotic fluid) in which your baby will be protected and continue to grow. Even at this early stage, the developing heart can be seen as a bulge, no bigger than a poppy seed, at the front of the embryo.
Appearance
Under a microscope, the embryo would look rather like a prawn in shape - but no bigger than a grain of rice. At this stage, the head can already be distinguished clearly from the body. The embryo has a curved back, like the letter C, with a stripe down it, which marks the beginning of the central nervous system. The embryo is attached by a stalk to the developing placenta.