Week By Week Pregnancy

Video Transcript

"Pregnancy can be a time of exciting changes both internally and externally. Hi I'm Michelle Collins and I'm a Nurse Midwife and Professor at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. I'd like to go through the weeks of pregnancy and highlight some of the points that you may want to know about. The first trimester of pregnancy, the first few weeks of pregnancy the baby is called an embryo. Most women don't even know that they're pregnant yet until they start to feel the fatigue and maybe the nausea and vomiting around the fifth or sixth week of pregnancy. Some of the signs that a woman may first notice that she's pregnant along with the fatigue and nausea and vomiting includes some breast tenderness or breast tingling especially in the nipple portion and a darkening of the Ariela which is the browner part around the nipple. In the second trimester of pregnancy which begins around 13 weeks we call this the honeymoon phase of pregnancy because usually women are getting over their nausea at least and they have a whole, a lot more energy. We call this second trimester the honeymoon phase because women are usually getting over their nausea and vomiting and generally feeling less fatigued than they were in the first trimester. They generally have that glow, nice glow about them that people will compliment them on. At about 20 weeks of pregnancy the woman's uterus is at the level of her belly button. Usually women can begin to feel baby moving somewhere around 16 to 22 weeks and that's pretty variable depending on whether the woman has had other children or not. The second trimester pregnancy should be spent just enjoying the pregnancy and getting ready for the pending birth. In the third trimester this is when women really prepare the nest. They finish the nursery. They have their baby showers. They attend child birth education classes and breast feeding classes which are most important. Each trimester of pregnancy has its own unique challenges and excitement built in. Hopefully you'll enjoy your pregnancy all the way through. Journaling throughout your pregnancy is a great way to remember the good times and the not so good times in pregnancy as well."