8 Weeks on Thursday

• This week your baby can officially be called a foetus. This particular label will continue for the rest of your pregnancy until after birth, when is finally known as “The Baby” or by its name. Around this time, some couples makeup a nickname for their foetus. Be careful though, it can be very hard to stop using those little terms of endearment once they stick!
• Your baby is around 1 centimetre long this week and it is finally losing its little tail. But it still looks like it is all head, with a big forehead and a little body. Don’t worry though, in the next few weeks it will lengthen and those limbs which look so tiny now will only grow and take more shape.
• This week your baby develops a tip on the end of its nose. Its fingers, toes and lips, eyelids and legs are becoming more clearly defined. Its eyes look to be positioned very far apart and more to the side of their face than where they will eventually be.
• In week 8 the valves in your baby’s heart are present and the passages which will help air flow from their throat to their lungs have formed. There are small definitions on their paddle like feet and hands where their toes and fingers will be.
• This week your baby is making little involuntary movements, though these are so small you won’t be conscious of them. It is still in a C shape, similar to a kidney bean but flickers and jumps around inside your uterus.
• Your baby’s bones are starting to form in week 8 and they can bend their tiny arms at their elbows and wrists.

Stay tuned for tomorrow is another doctor appointment...