Pregnancy calendar: 5th week of pregnancy
Pregnancy calendar by week. An experienced doctor tells how a child develops in the womb and what changes occur in the pregnant woman’s body. All the most important things about the 5th week of pregnancy
So, if the pregnancy test showed the long-awaited two strips – congratulations! You are pregnant. What should you pay attention to in the fifth week of pregnancy? How will the changes happen to you? How does the baby grow?
The fifth week from the last menstruation is the time to find out about pregnancy. If menstruation did not come in the usual period, the so-called delay of monthly bleeding, then it is better to take a pregnancy test on the 3-4th day of the delay. A pregnancy test determines the level of chorionic gonadotropin, a pregnancy hormone produced by cells of the placenta of the embryo (baby).
The fifth week of pregnancy – changes in your body:
From the fifth week of pregnancy, you can finally feel the first discomforts of pregnancy: extreme sensitivity and vulnerability to smells, increased sensitivity or even soreness in the chest, digestive disorders, rapid fatigue and severe drowsiness. Unfortunately, such friends of pregnancy often annoy, especially in the first three months of pregnancy. However, they enable the body to switch from its usual rhythm to the current period of creating a new life – pregnancy. Also, high levels of hormones that cause early toxicosis of pregnant women are very important for a good start of pregnancy, for attaching the embryo to the walls of the uterus. Sensitivity to smells allows a woman to understand what should be avoided, what is dangerous. Hormonal changes not only make you sensitive to smells, but also change your sense of taste. Now you can, for example, want to eat half a lemon. The digestive system adjusts so that food stays in the gut longer, so that more nutrients are absorbed, so that your body stores nutrients. Again, sleepiness puts you to bed, as if to say: take your time, rest, all this can wait. My advice is to allow yourself rest, walks in the fresh air and healthy food! After all, how your child develops is the most important thing now!
The fifth week of pregnancy – how does the baby grow?
All changes that occur with the baby in the fifth week are called gastrulation , and the baby itself is called a gastrula. The baby now looks more like a 1 mm long tadpole. The embryonic disc baby becomes three-dimensional (3D) and symmetrical, with a front and back, as well as right and left sides. This is an extremely important week in a child’s life. The child, which had the shape of an embryonic disc, must be formed (divided) into three embryonic layers.
The three germ layers are the basis for all future tissues and organs of the child. The outer germ layer is the ectoderm , from which the skin and its appendages (hair, nails), as well as the nervous system (brain and spinal cord, peripheral nervous system) will form. The middle germ layer is the mesoderm, from which the muscles, connective tissue, bones, circulatory system, kidneys and gonads will be created. The inner layer is the endoderm, which will form the basis of the gastrointestinal tract, pancreas, gall bladder, liver, and lungs.
In the fifth week, the development of the child’s nervous system begins: the child’s brain and spinal cord begin to form .
At the end of the week, the baby’s heart begins to form. So far, the heart looks like two connected tubes.
Buds of future arms and legs appear.
Also, the formation of the placenta continues – a reliable point of exchange between the body of the mother and the child, oxygen and nutrients flow from the mother to the child, and metabolic products and carbon dioxide are taken away.
Author: Olga Letnyanchyk, doctor
Read also:
– Pregnancy calendar: from 1 to 40 weeks
