27 Weeks Pregnant

Baby’s Development

Your baby is now measuring a beautiful 37cm long and is roughly 910g in weight.
Your baby’s taste buds are developing nicely and the cute little hiccups your baby may start having can be felt by mum (you may feel them as little belly spasms). It is said that baby is getting into a pattern of sleeping and ‘eating’ and ‘eats’ about 2 hours after you do. By eating we mean your baby tastes their amniotic fluid. Hmm…..tasty?

What’s Happening For You

• As your baby is growing and moving perfectly, you may find that your back is a little tender. This is because your growing uterus (now the size of a basket ball) has changed your centre of gravity and the beautiful hormones supporting your pregnancy have made your joints and ligaments a bit looser.
• If this wasn’t enough to make you feel like you need a pregnancy massage, the extra weight you are carrying is putting a bit more stress and pressure on your joints than you are used to. To remedy this, head to your qualified massage therapist who is trained in pregnancy massage. Run yourself a nice warm bath to relax your muscles. Remember to change position if you need to stand or sit for long periods of time, and when it comes time to sleep, do so on your side with a pillow between your legs and another pillow supporting your growing belly.
• This may also be the time that you start experiencing some swelling. Although normal and temporary (don’t worry you get your ankles back once bubs in born), any excessive swelling should be investigated by your health care professional to ensure everything is right on track.

Things To Consider

• Start drafting your birthing plan. It is very important to sit down with your birth partner and decide exactly what you’d like for your birth. Use the writing of your birth plan to start educating you on all your options for birth, whether that be for a home birth, a birth in a birth centre or a hospital birth. It is important to know your options and to make decisions about what your Plan ‘A’ birth will look like.
• You may also want to start reading up on some other important parental decisions you’ll need to make post birth. Such as, will you vaccinate by the proposed schedule? Will you do oral or injectable vitamin K at birth? Will you co sleep with your baby?
• Although you may think you and your partner are on the same page when it comes to medical/parental decisions, it is best that you start having these conversations now. It’ll give you both the time you need to research all your options.

Read more about what to expect next week.