BABIES DEVELOPMENT

Baby’s development in the womb

Owing to the fact that i have a lot of pregnant and intending preggies as friends and colleagues i thought it will be nice to share this piece after coming across it along while ago. im not a doctor nor a nurse but you can be sure when it comes to BABIES i can go to lengths on finding information on them, right from sex to their youth-hood.

In this description, we have adopted the method doctors use. For example, where we write ‘week 8’ we have counted this from the first day of your last period — your baby will usually only be 6 weeks old at this point.
How doctors date your pregnancy

The average pregnancy lasts for 38 weeks from the date you conceive (this is called conception). However, doctors usually date your pregnancy from the first day of your last menstrual period — that is the day your last period started. Using this method a pregnancy is said to last 40 weeks (280 days).

Your due date is usually calculated as 40 weeks from the first day of your last period. However, fertilization of your egg by sperm happens a day or 2 after ovulation, which occurs in the middle of a 28-day cycle, and then it is a couple of days before the fertilized egg implants in the uterus, so for the first 2 weeks of the 40-week ‘pregnancy’ you are not actually pregnant at all.

First month

After the egg has been fertilized by the sperm, it starts to divide into more cells. This happens all the time it is carried along the fallopian tube to the uterus. By the time it reaches the uterus the fertilised egg has become a cluster of cells which float in the uterine cavity until it embeds in the wall of the uterus. This implantation in the wall of the uterus is when conception is complete. This is roughly 4 weeks after day one of the last menstrual period if you have a 28-day cycle.

Second month

At 5 weeks the embryo is the size of a grain of rice (about 2 mm long) and would be visible to the naked eye. It has the beginnings of a brain with 2 lobes and its spinal cord is starting to form.

At 6 weeks of ‘pregnancy’ (3-4 weeks after fertilisation) the embryo has a head with simple eyes and ears. Its heart has 2 chambers and is beating. Small buds are present that will form arms and legs later. The beginnings of the spine can be seen and the lower part of the body looks like a tail.

embryo at 6 weeks

At 7 weeks, the limb buds have grown into arms and legs. Nostrils can be seen on the embryo’s face. The heart now has 4 chambers.

At 8 weeks, the eyes and ears are growing, and your baby is about 2 cm long from crown to rump. The head is out of proportion with the body and the face is developing. The brain and the blood vessels in the head can be seen through the thin skin. The bones in the arms and legs start to harden and elbows and knees become apparent. Fingers and toes can also be seen.
Third month

What is known as the embryonic period finishes at the end of week 8 and the fetal period begins. This period sees rapid growth of the fetus, and the further development of the organs and tissues that were formed in the embryonic period.

fetus at 11 weeks

At week 9 the head is almost half the crown to rump length of the fetus. Then the body grows substantially in length until by week 12, the head is more in proportion. By the time you are 12 weeks’ ‘pregnant’, your baby is just over 5 cm long from crown to rump.

Its body is fully formed, including ears, toes and fingers complete with fingernails. The external genitals appeared in week 9, and now, by week 12, have fully differentiated into male or female genitals. By week 12 the eyes have moved to the front of the face and the eyelids remain closed together.
Fourth month

Your baby may suck its thumb now. By 14 weeks your baby will be about 9-10 cm long. Its body is now covered with a layer of fine hair called lanugo. By 16 weeks its face is becoming more human in appearance, although the chin is small and the mouth is quite wide. Between 16 and 24 weeks you should feel your baby move for the first time — it may at first feel like butterflies.
Fifth month

The rapid growth that your baby has been experiencing now begins to slow a little. By week 20 your baby measures about 18 centimetres from crown to rump and is half as long as it will be when born. The legs are now in proportion with the body and the fingernails are well developed. Faint eyebrows are visible. At this stage, you will feel your baby moving about a lot, often when you lie down.

fetus at 20 weeks
Sixth month

By 24 weeks your baby’s organs are fully formed. The baby now has the face of a newborn baby, although the eyes are rather prominent because fat pads are yet to build up in the baby’s cheeks. The eyelids are fused until weeks 25 to 26 when they open.

The skin is wrinkled, red and thin with little underlying fat. The skin is covered with a waxy substance called vernix, which protects it while it is floating in the uterus. The body is well muscled, but still thin. The baby has become better proportioned, with the size of the body catching up with the size of the head.

Your baby’s hearing is also well developed by this stage; the baby will respond to noise.
Seventh month

By 28 weeks lanugo hair has almost gone and hair is present on the head. Fat is being deposited under the skin.
Eighth month

Your baby is becoming plumper. By 30 weeks the toenails are present and by 32 weeks the fingernails have reached the ends of the fingers. The baby’s eyes will be open when the baby’s awake.

By about 32 weeks the baby will have settled into a downward position as there is no longer enough room left in the womb for it to move about freely. You will feel occasional vigorous jabs of the baby’s arms and legs.

If your baby is a boy, his testes will migrate down into the scrotum in the 8th month.
Ninth month

Sometime between 36 and 40 weeks, the baby’s head will engage — that is, the head will be lying just on top of your cervix. By 40 weeks, your baby should be plump and healthy.

The lanugo hair that had covered your baby has now mostly disappeared, although some hair may remain low on the forehead, in front of the ears and down the center of the back. The toenails should have reached the tips of the toes.
Full term

By full-term, your baby should weigh about 2.7 to 3.5 kg, although full-term babies can weigh anything from 2.5 to 5 kg, and measure 35 to 38 centimeters from crown to rump and 44 to 55 cm from the baby’s head to its toes. These are just average figures, though, and there can be wide variation in the measurements. So now, 38 weeks after conception, your baby has all its organs and body systems ready for the big moment when it is born into the world.

Are you where you thought you would be?

Are you where you thought you would be at this point in your life?

I have been asked this question over and over again and every time the answer changes. The answer changes because I am always changing. Where you want to be in your life and where you think you will actually be are 2 very different things. As children we all wanted to be rich and famous and well-known (well most of us-maybe not all). But realistically we knew this was not going to be the case.

I can honestly say I never had a clear picture of what I thought my life would be like at this point.

I am the type of person that wants to learn and experience so much that I am unable to think of a life only one certain way. It would actually be almost impossible to picture my life at a future time. I will always have goals and dreams and I do hope some of these come into fruition but I don’t rely on these things to shape my life to define me.

I believe I am undefinable. I would have never guessed that I would be working in an IT firm or even be a fashion designer or at most surprising be a writer. I want to pursue a degree in human resource management or project management, I will eat my words with saying this and probably catch a lot of hell, but I am unsure of exactly how I want to use this degree and i definitely will go to fashion school. When I first started with this it was never my intention to make a name out of this but over the past year I have dove a lot into art and even learning how to sew and more on design techniques. people recommend, request and call me for different projects i don’t even have any idea about, its so sweet to know that few people believe in me and that as earlier planned am a role model to a few and still in-charge of my little tittle “FIRST CHILD”

OK, now back to the topic at hand…Am I where I thought I would be at this point in my life? As stated, I never saw my life in a certain way. if going by my initial plan, i should still be in school studying medicine, but going by the later plan, well what can i say Alhamdulilah. The only thing that is most important in my life (and I hope it is in everyone else’s – even through the hard times) is happiness. The thing about that though that I needed to change was realizing that happiness is a journey and not a destination. I still have to remind myself of that all of the time because I am always looking for an end…and while looking for that end I am missing the incredible journey I am on in this very moment. It has taken me a really long time to get to this point.

I am at a crucial point in my life where things are starting to make sense and I am feeling more in tune with who I am than I ever have. I still have a hard time accepting things and I do not always stand up for myself and I dislike confrontation in any form but I am learning. I am accepting what is right now. I am learning that I am beyond lucky for the things that I have in my life. I go through phases of loneliness and anxiety but I never stop forgetting that they are only moments and the world is too big of a place to get stuck in one small rut. I am slowly starting to talk more about who I really am and face fears that I had been ignoring for a long time. I am bringing what is on the inside out and the journey is absolutely breathtaking.

So i am not there yet, a lot of things have gone out of place, a lot in place and a lot too arranged am over whelmed but i am grateful and happy to be where i am because it is so promising and with you all by my side encouraging me.. i will get there!

ARE YOU THERE YET? and if not, where would you be in 5years?

The U in YOU

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you have to dig deep inside to muster the strength to go on and overcome sudden hardship.  It is in those times, when situations look hopeless, it is you that can find a way to come together and triumph.  With gritty determination, teamwork, and good old fashion gumption, i came out on top sometime ago.

I remember the first exam i missed in my university, it was a though course, and as a medical student, you can’t afford a D.. I had a guardian who was a lecturer and assured me i was going to write a make-up exam and should just get well. Well i did get well and i did write the make-up exams and did well but still i was tired already, i was tired of having to struggle too hard and i could imagine doing it for the next 6-8 years of my life all to become a doctor. Have always wanted to be a doctor since i was in primary 4,i had my first lab coat in  primary 5 and a stethoscope to match, i had the white dull shoes and i could do CPR, first Aids and all at 12years old, in my senior secondary i was made the health prefect and these things were to me, signs from God, my Gmama would call me doctor of our time as they all knew how obsessed i was with doctors, i would do a lot of researches and confront doctors any chance i get.
Well, the journey was soon ended when a list of the medical students came out and my name was missing, of course i was happy but i didn’t want to be dropped i wanted to drop. Now the problem was what next? I needed to decide what next in two weeks or less, i wasn’t ready, i practically am the first in my family, friends were confusing and my parents were of no help, because they wanted me to study medicine. One faithful afternoon, i had an appointment with my doctor and he ordered a young pretty girl to run some tests on me and she asked what i was studying in school, i said i don’t know, she was like huh? Ok, what department are you, i said; i don’t know. Then she tried speaking pidgin or yoruba then i smiled, i understand you perfectly i said, i just don’t know because i have been kicked out medicine which am glad but i don’t know what i want. She sighed and said, i was also kicked out of medicine that’s why i chose a course to stay close to doctors. Right there and then i thought i knew what i wanted. I wanted to be a Radiologist or a microbiologist.
I went back to school all smiles and fulfilled, i prayed to God and thanked him for always giving me signs and i did my registrations, i was back to being a student, did my tests and went for lectures, i was happy again, i was always glad and i was sure i would make very good grades. Then one day, just 2weeks to the exams, after i had copied my time table at my faculty, i saw a notice on the board in red and myself and many others were asked to report at the faculty office the day before. I was afraid and wondered why? I was more angry than afraid because nobody had told me of this notice, i called a few friends and apparently they didn’t know either, we all gathered and headed to the dean’s office.
I didn’t have the slightest idea as to why he called us but i knew it was for good, then he said;

“Why are you just coming? ( We tried to explain but he shut us up) well, the faculty is full and you all did your registration late but it won’t be fair so we split you into two groups those with above 3points and those below, those below should go and register with another faculty and the rest should check their names on this list.”
I was terrified for some of my friends because they didn’t make up to 3points and i was more terrified because we had just 2weeks to exams. I checked for my name and i didn’t find it. He screamed at me to check again but it wasn’t there, tears rolled down my eyes, i wasn’t sure what was happening but i knew i was in trouble. He said; ” it means you’re no longer a student of this school. I can remember all this words exactly because they were mean and from an old, heartless man called Prof WHO. (His son used to be my friend) he said; what were you doing when your mates were registering? He asked so many questions and never allowed me to answer. My CGPA was 3.75 how can i not make the school when a lot are in with much more less. I left his office in tears and fears. Headed to my department and the Head of microbiology said; that was the new rule, late registration, no identity. I thought of so many things but i wasn’t going to give up…

PLEASE READ PART 2: https://madekreations.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/the-u-in-you-2/