Length: 101 mm
Weight: 50 g
All measurements are approximate. Click here to see how we calculate baby's length and weight.
Baby:
Your baby is now about the size of a tennis ball.
Baby’s lungs are making some major strides forward; in fact, he has started breathing in small amounts of amniotic fluid, a vital step in the development of the lungs. As the production of saliva begins and the muscles of the cheeks continue to grow, he is becoming better and better at sucking – and his cheeks are starting to take on that round, baby-face look.
Speaking of amniotic fluid, did you know that your amniotic fluid is constantly replenishing itself? And that’s not the only amazing fluid fact – baby’s little heart is pumping 7.5 gallons of blood every 24 hours! That may seem like a lot, but believe it or not, a newborn’s heart pumps more than 10 times that much in the same stretch of time.
Mom:
Let’s talk about food. Hopefully you’ve regained any appetite you lost during the nausea of morning sickness. But what to eat?
With the hectic demands of your everyday life, it’s so easy to pick up prepackaged foods or order in takeout. The problem with those kinds of foods is that it’s hard to know exactly what you’re getting – even something that sounds healthy may contain loads of oil, salt or sugar.
Become a “label reader”; processed foods can have high hidden sodium content. Too much sodium can cause water retention and swelling of your hands and feet.
Unless your practitioner has advised otherwise, you don’t have to avoid any of these things altogether. But you also don’t want to overdo them, especially now. Consider how many calories you should be getting per day, and then think about how many of them are wasted with excess oil and sugar. Neither you nor your baby get any kind of nutritional value out of them.
It may seem like you just don’t have enough time to cook things from scratch using fresh ingredients. But instead of giving up on the idea, try scaling back your usual recipes and make something simpler. Steamed veggies take almost no time or effort to prepare, and they’re delicious when complemented with just a bit of fresh olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, a pinch of salt and some fresh-ground pepper.
The key is not to forgo oil and salt altogether – but when you prepare food yourself, you can control how much of each is used.