Pregnancy Week 19: Baby is kicking
Your baby’s skin now has a rather strange looking coating to protect it from permanent wrinkling (from floating around in all that amniotic fluid) but you may be looking for something that could protect you from the terrible pain of nightly leg cramps.
Your Baby in Week 19 of Pregnancy
This week, Baby is likely to measure about 15 centimeters in length and overall is about the size of a large mango. If you wee able to get a proper look at them you would also see that they are now completely covered in a cheese like substance called vernix caseosa (vernix is the Latin word for varnish; caseosa is the Latin word for cheese)
As gross as this might sound this strange substance serves an important purpose, protecting baby’s very delicate skin from the amniotic fluid that surrounds them. If it was not there by the time baby arrived they would look like a very wrinkled prune.
Usually most of this substance, which is a mixture of lanugo (the downy hair we have mentioned before) and dead skin cells (Baby’s skin is rejuvenating all the time just like yours does) will have disappeared by the time Baby is born. If Baby is early some of it may still remain though.
In other developments this week, more of the cartilage in baby’s body is hardening into real bone. Couple this with the fact that all the right neurons in their brains are connecting with all the right muscles now and its easy to see why those movements you are probably getting a little bit stronger. Every move Baby makes is more precise and deliberate now and they are really beginning to gain some arm and length in earnest.
Your Body in Week 19 of Pregnancy
There’s nothing quite like retiring to a nice, comfy bed at the end of a long, hard day — especially when you are a Mum to Be. Therefore (often literally) aching for a great night’s slumber you gather your nice pillows and settle back ready to fall asleep. Unfortunately, by this stage of their pregnancy and for the weeks that follow many Mums to be find their blissful, peaceful sleep rudely interrupted by the painful spasms of a sudden leg cramp. Occasionally they will occur in the day as well, but they are far more common at night. So much for getting all the sleep you can before baby arrives!
As we have mentioned before medical science has yet to pinpoint the exact cause of these nasty pains. There are plenty of theories – overworked leg muscles are that are just fatigued from carrying around all the extra weight of pregnancy, or that the leg vessels are being compressed by your growing uterus at 19 weeks pregnant.
Whatever the cause though , you’ll will certainly be in dire need a quick fix when a leg cramp does strike. The easiest way to dissipate the cramp quickly? Straighten your leg and gently and slowly flex your ankle and toes back toward your shin.
Possible New Symptoms in Week 19 of Pregnancy
Many of the symptoms that have been affecting you for weeks now are still around – heartburn, constipation, nagging backaches and frequent light-headedness. The nagging backache may be the nastiest thing you are dealing with right now. The one thing you must do (apart from consider booking yourself an appointment with a good chiropractor) life a lot more sensibly now. If you really must lift something that is a little heavy, stabilize yourself by assuming a wider stance and bend at the knees (not at the waist), and slowly lift the object with your arms and legs, never your back.
Pregnancy Tips for the Nineteenth Week of Pregnancy
Can’t Feel Baby Move Yet? Don’t Panic!
Your sister says she had felt her Baby move by now, and so does your Mum, your auntie and almost everyone else you know. However, you have not felt a thing out of the ordinary yet, with the exception of a few extra gas bubbles. Theer is however no reason to get overly alarmed. Women experience those first wonderful sensations anytime between their 18th and 23rd weeks of pregnancy. If you are thinner you may feel them sooner than others and a Mum to be with laxer uterine muscles often experience them sooner as well, the reason why many second time Mums feel Baby move sooner than they did with their first. Don’t worry though, when you do feel Baby move there will be no mistaking it, and within a few more weeks, when their kicking skills suddenly seem to have developed to professional footballer levels, you may occasionally wish they were not quite so active all the time!
