6 weeks pregnant
Our guide to your 6th week of pregnancy
Your Baby
It may still be tiny, but big changes are happening to your unborn baby. This week the nose, eyes, ears and mouth are forming. Its brain is growing in size, as are its muscles and bones although your baby is only around 5mm long.
Your baby’s heart is already beating strongly to pump blood around its minute body. In fact, its heart is beating at around 100 to 160 times a minute, which is nearly twice as fast as your own.
You
The dreaded side effects of the first trimester are starting to take hold now. It is during the first 12 weeks of your pregnancy, what is known as the first trimester – thankfully the shortest of the three periods of pregnancy – that you will have to deal with the worst affects of pregnancy. You may feel sick, incredibly tired, moody, hot, and dizzy; suffer from migraines, heartburn and constipation and have swollen, tender breasts.
Your moods are particularly temperamental at this early stage. Not least because you are coming to terms with actually being pregnant, but also your hormone production has gone into overdrive. You may cry at adverts, laugh for no reason and make mountains out of molehills. This is normal. Spend some time with your partner talking everything through. He needs to be made aware of when it’s best to leave you to your own devices and when to comfort you.
How to get a decent night’s sleep
Sleep is tough through most of your pregnancy, although the second trimester is significantly better than the first and last. It doesn’t get much better once you’ve had the baby either, so it’s a good idea to discover ways of getting a good night’s sleep early on.
There will be various things keeping you awake, from the benign such as worrying about the birth, to the down right annoying such as leg cramps or restless leg syndrome, which is when you have a burning need to move your legs. These could be signs of vitamin deficiency. A lack of iron, calcium or magnesium could be causing the cramping or restlessness. On your doctors advice, seek out the vitamins you could be lacking and take supplements.
Take time in the evenings to wind down. Enjoy a bath, have a hot milky drink and relax with a novel for the last 30-45 minutes before you go to bed.
Exercise can improve sleeping patterns. However, avoid any evening activities as this will only get your blood pumping and adrenaline rushing which will do the opposite and keep you awake into the night.
Teach yourself through sheer perseverance to sleep on your left side. This position will ensure blood and nutrients flow consistently to the uterus and will help rid your kidneys of any waste.
Previous (five weeks) | Next (seven weeks)