14 weeks Pregnant in Months | What You Need to Know

Your OB probably won't offer this test to everyone, but they might discuss it with women who have risk factors. Week 14 of pregnancy is often a very welcomed week. Morning sickness is starting to get better, as is your desire to sleep 18 hours a day. You might start to notice a baby bump, but it's not quite big enough to get in your way yet. So if you are around 14 weeks of pregnancy, there is a lot to know, so keep watching this video. But first, if you're new here, my name is Diana. I'm a physician assistant, and I specialize in women's health and gynecology. You're watching In The Pink, and if you're new here, In The Pink means in good health and spirit. So if you like being healthy and happy, click subscribe because you are in the right place. So at 14 weeks, you are three and a half months along, and you have about 26 more weeks to go. As for your baby, she is now about three and a half to four inches long. So about as long as a rubber duck. She probably weighs around two to three ounces. She's developing hair all over her body now, so that means eyebrows, hair on her head, and even eyelashes. She will also be developing a very fine, downy, short hair all over her skin called lanugo. Now this hair helps her to stay warm early during her development, but as she develops more fat, the hair will go away. She can start to make facial expressions, she can grimace, she can smile, she can even suck her thumb. All her organs are starting to become more functional. Her thyroid is starting to produce hormones, her liver now can produce bile, and her spleen can produce red blood cells. At 14 weeks, the genitalia are fully formed, so you could potentially tell the gender of the baby on ultrasound at this point. If you can get a good look, which is sometimes difficult this early, your OB might be able to tell you at your next OB appointment. Because your baby's organs are more fully formed, the risk of miscarriage is much lower now. So for many, this is when they start to announce their pregnancies to family and friends. Your next routine appointment is usually around 16 weeks. So like I mentioned earlier, your OB might be able to tell you the gender at this appointment, but sometimes it's difficult. Maybe the baby is acting modest and doesn't give you a good view. Sometimes the umbilical cord is between the legs and can look a little bit like a penis. Sometimes the penis is hard to see and it looks like a girl, so if your OB doesn't give you a clear answer, just hold off on painting the baby's room pink or blue until you can get a better look. However, on ultrasound you can see a lot more movement from your baby, even if you can't feel it yet. The baby's arms and legs are growing longer and are a little bit more proportionate to the rest of their body and starting to move a lot more too. You can see these movements on ultrasound, but it's still going to be a month or two until you can start to feel it yourself. At your upcoming appointment, your doctor might offer some tests to check for genetic abnormalities. There are a few options that you have. They might offer something called amniocentesis. If this test is done, it's usually done from somewhere around 15 to 18 weeks. With this test, your OB puts a long needle through your tummy into the uterus and collects some amniotic fluid. Now this fluid is tested and can help you to know if your baby has something called neural tube defect and other genetic disorders. There is a risk of miscarriage with amniocentesis anywhere from 0.2 to 0.5%, which means there will be one miscarriage out of about every 200 tests done. So your OB probably won't offer this test to everyone, but they might discuss it with women who have risk factors. For example, if you are over 35 like I was when I was pregnant, or if you have any family history of a genetic disorder, or if any of the screening blood tests have come up positive. Now if you don't want to do amniocentesis, which I don't blame you, most people don't, but you still want testing, there are simple blood tests that you can do. Like the quad screening, which is just a blood test that can check for Down syndrome, spina bifida, trisomy 18. This test is usually done somewhere between 15 to 18 weeks, but it can be done up to 22 weeks. So just remember, this is just a screening test and even if you get a negative result, it doesn't absolutely guarantee that your baby doesn't have a genetic disorder. And if it's positive, it doesn't mean that there is a 100% chance that your baby does. If your quad screen does come back positive, your OB might want to discuss further testing if you want to do it. A prenatal cell free DNA testing is another option. Just talk to your OB so that together you can make the decision on what testing, if any, you want to do. Personally, I didn't do any, and that's okay too, but even if you decide that you don't want to do any tests to check for genetic abnormalities, your ultrasounds can pick up on signs that there might be something wrong as well. As for you, you're going to start feeling a lot better now that you've entered the second trimester of your pregnancy. Now I mentioned earlier the lanugo, that hair that gets all over the baby's body. Now there's an old wives tale that says that if you have a hairy baby, you're more likely to have heartburn. That is not true, but you are more likely to have heartburn than when you're not pregnant. The reason is that when you're pregnant, your body releases hormones, and those hormones tend to relax the smooth muscle in your body. In the case of heartburn, it relaxes the smooth muscle in the gastrointestinal system. When the smooth muscle in your esophagus gets relaxed, the gastric acids from your stomach can go back up into the esophagus and this can cause symptoms of heartburn or burning right in this area. But other symptoms that it can cause, it can cause you to have a sour taste in your mouth. It can make you have a sore throat. It can even cause a dry, irritating cough. So if you are having symptoms of heartburn, go to the pharmacy and pick up Tums. That's safe during your pregnancy and the calcium is actually pretty good for you, but don't take more than what it says to on the bottle. You can also take over-the-counter Prevacet or Tagamet. Those are all safe during pregnancy too. But if you are struggling with heartburn, make sure to mention that to your OB as well. If you want to know more about heartburn, I actually talked a lot about that in week 10 of my pregnancy series. So make sure to check that out. Also, I've actually put together a whole playlist that has all of my pregnancy videos starting from week 4. I go over a lot of good information each week. Each video is different and I talk about different things each week. So make sure to check that out. I'm going to put a link to that playlist down here. Click on that video and I will see you over there. So it might be a surprise for you to learn that you don't just walk out of the hospital in your pre-pregnancy clothing. You're going to have some swelling. You're going to have some weight and it takes a little bit of time to fit back into your pre-baby clothing.