So you’re five weeks pregnant…
You might just be at the point of having realized you’re pregnant. It’s likely you just missed your period and are starting to feel some symptoms caused by those increasing levels of hormones, like nausea, sore breasts and fatigue.
We’ve got more information for you over on our blog post on early pregnancy symptoms if you’re curious what symptoms to expect and to know if what you’re experiencing is normal.
And adding to that, you might be experiencing no symptoms at all, which is completely okay! You’re one of the lucky ones, and fingers crossed you escape the rest of the first trimester unscathed and free from morning sickness!
Baby’s Development
In your fifth week of pregnancy, baby is the size of a peppercorn! That teeny, tiny little baby is the size of .13 inches from the top of head to its bottom, and growth from here on out will be rapid, with baby doubling in size in one week.
Yet inside that teeny, tiny body BIG changes are happening. Baby is developing major organs, like the heart (the first organ to develop and function), stomach, liver and kidneys, and also developing major systems, like digestive, circulatory and nervous.
And by the end of the fifth week, the heartbeat should be able to be detected via ultrasound! However, being able to HEAR the heartbeat may not come until further in the pregnancy, so don’t be alarmed if your ultrasound technician uses the scan to measure the visible beats per minute versus listening with a Doppler. And at this stage, baby’s heartbeat should be between 90-110 beats per minute, and that will keep increasing until it peaks at 9-10 weeks gestation before slowing a bit in the second and third trimesters.
Now is also a good time to begin taking folic acid, as it helps prevent neural tube defects from forming, and then continue taking that folic acid through the rest of the first trimester.