Friday, June 12, 2009

Yippeee 20 weeks!



How your baby's growing:
Your baby weighs about 9 ounces now. He's also around 6 1/2 inches long from head to bottom and about 10 inches from head to heel — the length of a banana. Your baby can hear sounds by now -- your voice, heart and your stomach growling, as well as sounds outside your body. It will cover its ears with its hands if a loud sound is made near you, and it may even become startled and "jump." The baby is moving often, too -- twisting, turning, wiggling, punching and kicking. He's swallowing more these days, which is good practice for his digestive system. He's also producing meconium, a black, sticky by-product of digestion. This gooey substance will accumulate in his bowels, and you'll see it in his first soiled diaper (some babies pass meconium in the womb or during delivery). Hair is beginning to grow on your baby's head and lanugo, a soft fine hair, covers his or her shoulders, back, and temples. This hair protects your baby and is usually shed at the end of the baby's first week of life. Your baby's skin is covered with a whitish coating called vernix caseosa. This "cheesy" substance, thought to protect baby's skin from long exposure to the amniotic fluid, is shed just before birth

1 comment:

  1. "meconium, a black, sticky by-product of digestion" ... nobody told me about that. Can I back out?

    ReplyDelete