Week 24!

Fetal development in pregnancy week 24:

Fetus in sixth month This is another big week for your magical growing baby! Just take a look at the checklist for this week:
1) ears: done;
2) fingernails: done;
3) (if you have a boy) testicles: taking their 3-4 day trip from the abdominal wall to the scrotum; and
4) lungs walls: secreting “surfactant”.

What’s that? Well, surfactant is sort of what it sounds like: a surface-activated fat whose main purpose is to assist the your baby's little lungs during inflation (as in, filling with air, not getting more expensive). Just in case you’re curious, your submerged baby is still breathing in amniotic fluid, preparing and rehearsing the lungs an oxygen-filled life outside the womb.

By the end of this week, your child will be weighing around 2 lbs and 14 inches long. Your cutie-patootie may even be a little more plump, but isn't anywhere near their full baby-fatted cute-self. Most of the “filling out” is coming up in that long awaited (and slightly dreaded?) third trimester. Woo-hoo! Get ready!

And how's mom doing? Your little one is moving (spinning, kicking, pirouetting, shimmying, and maybe even doing a bit of the Can-Can) so much these days that if you invite your friends and/or family to touch your belly there’s a good chance they’ll get a milder sample of what you’ve been experiencing.