Week Twenty Six Of Pregnancy

Week 26 Of Your Baby’s Development!

Your baby is the size of a Zucchini

At about 14 inches long (about the length of a zucchini) and 1 2/3 pounds your baby is getting plumper too as he continues to put on fat.

Baby’s hearing is getting better this week as the network of nerves in his ears develop. He can hear you and people around him so he will get familiar with your voice and recognize it after birth too. It does sound kind of muffled though, because he can also hear all the swooshing of amniotic fluid and your organs plus your heart beating. No wonder babies like white noise machines to soothe them after they are born!

By this time, baby has learned to breathe and he is actually breathing in amniotic fluid, like he will oxygen, once he is safely delivered earth side.

The testicles are still descending into the scrotum right about now – the process takes a good two months to get completed. One good thing is that your  little one is sleeping for longer periods at a stretch, sort of mimicking your own sleep periods, but often cheekily at opposite times!

Another big development this week is that baby’s eyes are opening now and he can actually see around him, though there is not much to see inside you. The iris is beginning to gain color but it’s still too early to tell if bub will end up with beautiful blue, intriguing green or big brown eyes.

Week 26 Of Your Health, Mind & Body Changes

You are well past the halfway mark with your pregnancy and you can feel baby’s movements quite clearly now. This is a great time for you build a bond with your baby and establish a ritual that she will be familiar with. Singing, rocking, crooning or story telling- do as much or as little of it as you like.

“ I felt strange talking to my pregnant belly so I never did any of that, but I did spend 10 minutes in the morning just lying in bed feeling baby move around and kick, placing my hand on my belly. That was my bonding time” Amanda

Hot flushes, rashes and sweaty bouts are common now and that’s why you should opt for loose or stretchy comfy clothes all the time. Avoid synthetics and also steer clear of harsh chemicals based skin or air products.

Apart from the achy back and joints and swollen feet and hands, baby brain may be regularly rearing it’s head. The best thing to do is just laugh it off, Stop worrying about it and switch to jotting down notes for a while because it happens to many women.

Round ligament pain is a common symptom now and this can be attributed to your expanding uterus too. Avoid standing for long periods and keep as active as your body will allow.

Week 26 Of Your Next Steps!

• When you sleep on your back, your backbone is kind of hindering baby’s movements plus your baby and uterus is putting a whole lot of pressure on a major artery. A good move at this stage is to switch sleeping positions so you are lying on your side with a pillow between your legs or use a pregnancy pillow for greater comfort.
• Lack of movement from baby for a very long time is a sign that you should not ignore. Call up your doctor and tell them about it immediately. But remember that babies do sleep longer at this stage so keep that in mind as well. It’s a hard balance, but you’ll begin to learn the difference and become familiar with baby’s movement patterns.
• How’s that birthing research going? You will find out a lot of information about birth choices and options at a birthing class and this will help you to create a birth plan, if it’s something you want to do. A birth plan is more a set of ‘intentions’ that help guide your caregiver on the day with options you would like or not like. While it may not go to ‘plan’ on the day, having a birth plan can certainly help shape how the experience turns out for you. A birth plan can simply be some bullet points about the following:
• Birth Plan Ideas
  – pain relief (do you want any options, do you want some options only? No preference?)
  – cord cutting, clamping – is delayed cord clamping an option your caregiver provides?
  – would you like baby placed with you for skin to skin immediately after birth?
  – water birth – would you like this as an option if it’s available?
  – do you want to look at baby to find out the gender or have the caregiver announce it?
  – who’s seeing the ‘business end’ (some women don’t want their partner seeing this yet caregivers just ask whoever on the day if they’d like to look)These are all the sorts of things you may want to consider as part of your birth intentions. None of these may be of consequence to you and you may just prefer to wing it on the day and that’s fine too!

“ I created a birth plan that I was really happy with and my midwife was onboard. Unfortunately I ended up getting transferred to another hospital and it all went out the window when I was handed over to other caregivers. Next time, I would still do a birth plan though because it really helped me feel positive about the lead up to birth.”
  Jasmine