4th Week of Pregnancy
By Week 4 of your pregnancy, you might start noticing some changes in your body. For starters, you’ll miss the expected start of your period.
Before that date, some women report feeling a little tired, with a touch of nausea and even some cramping – in short, the same kinds of symptoms that usually mean a menstrual period is about to start. Except that it doesn’t, which is the first sure sign that you may indeed be pregnant.
By Week 4, some women have built up enough hormones in their systems to show a positive result on a pregnancy test. At this stage, a home test kit can provide proof of whether you’re pregnant. If a home test confirms that you’re pregnant, your next step should be to make an appointment to see your gynecologist, who will refer you to an obstetrician. Most likely, the doctor won’t feel a need to see you immediately, but probably will prescribe prenatal vitamins.
If your first home pregnancy test comes back negative during Week 4, don’t despair. It’s possible that you simply haven’t built up enough pregnancy hormones yet. Give it another week or even two, and test again. By then you’ll probably get a clear positive result.
Don’t be surprised if fatigue is one of your Week 4 symptoms. After all, amazing things are happening inside your body.
At 4 weeks, the embryo in your uterus is still microscopically tiny, about one millimeter long, and it still doesn’t look anything like a human. At this stage the ball of cells will be embedding itself deeply into the uterine lining. The amniotic cavity is forming around it, and the placenta is starting to develop.
Growth of the placenta is a key development in pregnancy. Remember in week three we mentioned how the blastocyst was connecting to the uterine lining through a series of tunnels? Those tunnels are forming into a network of blood vessels and blood tissue that make up the placenta, which is the structure that brings nutrients and oxygen to the fetus.
Meanwhile, the cells in the blastocyst keep multiplying and now they’re beginning to differentiate. Some cells will form the neural tube that becomes the baby’s spinal column. Other cells will develop into other organs and parts of the body. This cell differentiation is to crucial to fetal development, and it’s why the earliest weeks of pregnancy are considered a critical time.
If you’re exposed to toxic substances during these weeks, it can cause serious, perhaps even fatal, damage to the embryo. For this reason it’s essential that you do everything you can to avoid harmful substances, especially environmental pollutants, tobacco, alcohol, caffeine and any drugs not prescribed by your doctor. This includes certain kinds of foods, which can harbor bacteria, chemicals and other substances that could cause irreparable damage to the fetus.
Foods to avoid during pregnancy because of their possibility of being contaminated with bacteria or toxic chemicals include:
-
All raw meat including uncooked seafood such as sushi and raw shellfish, along with and rare or undercooked beef or poultry;
-
Deli meats, pate, and smoked seafood such as lox, nova style, kippered, or jerky;
-
Fish tainted with mercury such as shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish, and fish exposed to industrial pollutants from local streams and lakes;
-
Raw eggs or any foods that contain raw eggs such as, mayonnaise, Caesar dressings, Hollandaise sauces and homemade ice cream or custards,;
-
Imported soft cheeses such as Gorgonzola, Brie, Feta, Camembert, Roquefort, and Mexican-style cheeses like queso fresco and queso blanco, unless their labels clearly say that they are made from pasteurized milk;
-
Unwashed Vegetables. Salad is great, just be sure to wash all your vegetables thoroughly before eating.
No related posts.