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Your Pregnancy Week by Week: Weeks 5-8

Week 5

Baby: Your embryo still hasn't grown much. It's about 0.05 inches long. Heart, brain, spinal cord, muscle and bones are beginning to develop. The placenta, which will nourish your baby, and the amniotic sac, which provides a warm and safe environment where the baby can move easily, are still forming, too.

Mom-to-be: Still no big changes to notice in yourself, although you might suspect by now that you're pregnant. Some early pregnancy symptoms include nausea (called "morning sickness," although it can happen at any time of day), a tingling or soreness in your breasts and darkening of the areola, the need to urinate more frequently and feeling more tired than usual.

Pregnancy Week by Week

If you are newly pregnant, or trying to conceive, you have many questions about what to expect. How will your body change? What's happening inside you? Here's what to expect week by week.

Related to pregnancy

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Tip for the Week: You'll want to schedule a visit to your OB-Gyn as soon as you suspect you're pregnant. Good prenatal care is one of the best assurances of a healthy pregnancy and healthy baby.

Week 6

Baby: The embryo is starting to look like a tadpole. It's about 0.08 inches to 0.16 inches -- the size of a BB pellet -- from the top of the head to buttocks. (This crown-to-rump length is used more often than crown-to-heel length because the baby's legs are most often bent and hard to measure). The eyes and limb buds also are forming. A heartbeat can sometimes be detected by an ultrasound around now. This is also an extremely important time in the development of your baby, since between 17 and 56 days the embryo is most susceptible to factors that can interfere with its normal growth.

Mom-to-be: You may have gained a few pounds by now, but if you're experiencing morning sickness you may have lost weight, which is also normal. You're starting to notice some changes in your body: clothes getting a little tighter around the waist, weight gain in your legs and breasts. With a pelvic exam, your practitioner will be able to notice a change in the size of your uterus.

Tip for the Week: Make sure you're following good prenatal habits, like eating right and taking your prenatal vitamins. Since the neural tube (which is the beginning of the central nervous system) has formed by now, taking folic acid to prevent spinal cord defects such as spina bifida, has been crucial. If you haven't already, stop smoking and drinking.

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