here - Health Promotion Agency

How the baby develops
WEEKS 15–22
The baby is now growing quickly.
The body grows bigger so that the
head and body are more in
proportion and the baby doesn’t
look so top heavy. The face begins
to look much more human and the
hair is beginning to grow as well as
eyebrows and eyelashes. The
eyelids stay closed over the eyes.
The lines on the skin of the fingers
are now formed, so the baby already
has its own individual fingerprints.
Finger and toenails are growing
and the baby has a firm hand grip.
At about 22 weeks, the baby
becomes covered in a very fine, soft
hair called ‘lanugo’. The purpose
of this isn’t known, but it is thought
that it may be to keep the baby at
the right temperature. The lanugo
disappears before birth, though
sometimes just a little is left and
disappears later.
At about 16–22 weeks you will
feel your baby move for the first
time. If this is your second baby,
you may feel it earlier – at about
16–18 weeks after conception.
At first you feel a fluttering or
bubbling, or a very slight shifting
movement, maybe a bit like
indigestion. Later you can’t mistake
the movements, and you can even
see the baby kicking about. Often
you can guess which bump is a
hand or a foot and so on.
Week 22
ACTUAL SIZE HEAD TO BOTTOM
ABOUT 27 CM
WEEKS 23–30
The baby is now moving about
vigorously and responds to touch
and to sound. A very loud noise
close by may make it jump and
kick. It is also swallowing small
amounts of the amniotic fluid in
which it is floating and passing tiny
amounts of urine back into the
fluid. Sometimes the baby may get
hiccups, and you can feel the jerk
of each hiccup. The baby may also
begin to follow a pattern for waking
and sleeping. Very often this is a
different pattern from yours, so,
when you go to bed at night, the
baby wakes up and starts kicking.
The baby’s heartbeat can now be
heard through a stethoscope. Your
partner may even be able to hear it
by putting an ear to your abdomen,
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