Things are about to get serious now that you are already 9 weeks pregnant. Your baby has now started to develop into a foetus from an embryo. As this new life grows inside of you inch by inch, you would want to plan your maternity leave and your career after becoming a mother. There would be a wave of serious thoughts that would touch the shore of your mind.
Things like how would your life change after the baby gets into the picture? Or what are the changes you would have to make in your budget for the baby? Don’t worry! You still have a lot of time in your hand to take care of all these things.
Now that you are already 9 weeks pregnant, you have successfully completed the first 2 months of your pregnancy. This is the last month of your first trimester before you embark your journey for the second one.
Pregnancy Week: 9
The size of your baby is getting bigger by each passing day. The baby becomes about 1 inch long when you are 9 weeks pregnant. A 9 weeks pregnant baby size is comparatively similar to that of an average cherry.
Your baby that has now moved into the foetus phase will start to look more like a tiny human growing inside your womb. The physical features will become a little more meticulous and recognizable on an ultrasound scan. The head of your growing baby has straightened out while the ears and nose are still in progress. The eyelids of your baby are still growing, covering most of his/her eyes. This is the week when the color of your baby’s eyes will develop as its eyes take its form and shape.
Also, the hands and feet of your baby will now have fingers and toes growing on them. Additionally, all the core body systems and organs like the heart, brain, kidneys, liver, and lungs have begun to develop.
After being nine weeks pregnant, your baby will finally start moving inside of your womb. It can now wiggle, bend, and move around inside of you. Although, you won’t be able to sense its movement as yet. But you can see your little munchkin all set in motion on an ultrasound scan. While on the outside, your 9 weeks pregnant belly has grown a quite a few inches. In fact, it is now doubled. In a few weeks, your uterus will start growing out of your pelvis.
9 Weeks Pregnant Symptoms
The first trimester is the most difficult one. A pregnant woman in her first trimester can go through a lot of discomfort and chaos. Anyhow, if you have successfully been through the first trimester, you won’t find the upcoming ones that difficult. The second and third trimester goes a little easier than the first one. So it is just one last month of bearing all the pangs and gyps while happy days are only a few weeks away.
However, 9 weeks pregnant symptoms are also a little challenging. Take these 9 weeks pregnant symptoms as a test, after all, things that don’t break you makes you stronger!
1. Bloating and Gas
The digestion process becomes a little slower when you are 9 weeks pregnant. The food takes longer than usual to pass through your intestine. In order to provide nutrients to the baby by directly sucking the nutrients into the bloodstream, the digestion takes longer. Due to this delay in digesting food, the 9 weeks pregnant woman can consequentially face problems like bloating and gas.
A 9 weeks pregnant woman would often feel like a smoke grenade ready to bomb the room with gas. You don’t need to feel embarrassed about this happening to you. It is natural and most pregnant women experience the same.
2. Feeling dizzy
Feeling a bit faint or dizzy is a common 9 weeks pregnant symptom. Many pregnant women experience low blood pressure, low iron level, or extra pressure in their blood system. All these things can make them feel faint or dizzy.
3. Inexplicable change in mood
In the first trimester, the body of a pregnant woman is flooded with progesterone and oestrogen. These fluctuations in hormones can take a toll on your emotional health. Hormone fluctuations are guilty of most of the discomfort and chaos caused during pregnancy. Although, besides these fluctuations, being stressed about the baby’s health and well being can also leave you to feel anxious and cause mood swings.
All these factors trigger your neurotransmitters- mood-regulating brain chemicals that affect the level of your mood. Generally, the mood swings hit the hardest amid the pregnancy week 6 to week 10. However, after that, you may find yourself a little calm and stable until the third trimester. This rainbow of emotions makes an unwelcoming comeback during the final stage of your pregnancy while you mentally and physically prepare yourself to give birth.
4. Heartburn
Yet again the surge in progesterone levels is sound guilty of another pregnancy discomfort. Progesterone relaxes the smooth muscles in order to slow down digestion for extracting nutrients for the baby from the food you eat.
There is a sphincter present at the top of your stomach that is made up of smooth muscle. This sphincter helps to keep the food and stomach acid down. But when this muscle is relaxed by the progesterone, the food and stomach acid easily slide up towards the oesophagus, causing heartburn or indigestion consequently.
5. Itchy breasts
In week 8 of your pregnancy, you already faced pregnancy symptoms like sore or tender breasts. However, in week 9 these breast problems aggravate a little. The enlarging and growing skin on your breast could have stretch marks that would make them feel slightly itchy. Keep them moisturised to help ease the irritation.
9 Weeks Pregnant Ultrasound
In week 9 of your pregnancy, you would most likely be getting an ultrasound scan for your baby. This week you would be able to sense your baby’s heartbeat that would most probably be beating at the pace of 130 to 150 beats per second. In case you are expecting twins, it would be detectable in your 9 weeks pregnant ultrasound scan.
You can find your baby to look like a foetus and not an embryo that you had been seeing in your ultrasound scans up until now. You would find developing limbs of your baby.
Some Self-Care Tips for Pregnancy
Below are the tips that you need to be considered during pregnancy:
Look after your mental well-being
It is completely okay to go through a full range of emotions during your pregnancy. However, you must look after yourself. Try getting enough sleep, meditate, exercise, and maintain a balanced diet. All these things will make you feel better emotionally, mentally, and physically.
Breast relief
If moisturizing them doesn’t work, consult your doctor. You can also avoid things that could make your skin dry like hot showers, detergents, soaps, or clothing, etc.
Enjoy every moment and do take very good care of yourself!
Also Read; Pregnancy Week 10