16th week of pregnancy

Week-16-pregnancy

We are already fully in the fetal period. All the organs and structures of our baby will grow and mature until the end of pregnancy. You may not be pregnant.

How is my baby

At this stage there are already coordinated movements in your legs, though not from the arms.

The skeleton of our baby begins a process called ossification. This process consists of the actual formation of the bone. Until now, the baby has a skeleton made of cartilage and through a series of processes these cells become the typical structure of bone. It is a time when the baby begins to capture a large amount of calcium, to harden your bones.

The baby move your eyes. Slow eye movements begin. There is also the final placement of the eyes and ears.

In girls the ovaries are finally differentiated. At week 16 we find cells in the ovary that will be the future ovules and that at this moment are in the process of formation. It's funny to know that Women are born with the endowment of oocytes, from which the eggs will come out in each menstruation, throughout our fertile life.

In the case of children the testicle has differentiated much earlierBut it will not start producing sperm until puberty and will do so for life thereafter.

In the fetal period we find four stages of growth depending on the baby's weight gain. In week 16 the stage of accelerated growth, in which our baby will gain about 85 g / week.

The placenta is already working at full capacity, producing the hormones necessary for the development of our baby and the maintenance of pregnancy.

Symptom

Usually the nausea has already disappeared and a quiet period begins in that sense. The feeling of fullness usually persists after eating, as well as constipation. Surely the discomfort in the lower abdomen has practically disappeared.

You will continue to sleep in a somewhat peculiar way. You don't sleep badly, you sleep like a pregnant woman. Three or four hours at the beginning of the night and after getting up several times to the bathroom you sleep short dreams ...

Generally we start to feel good and we are no longer worried about it, we begin to enjoy the pregnancy.


Although he moves a lot, it is too early to notice the baby's movements. They will surely tell you that you have to notice them now, ignore them, the baby is about 12 cm and weighs 80-90 gr. Too small for you to notice anything.

Testing

At this point We will already have the final result of the triple screening and the fetal DNA test if they have done it to us. We already know the possible risk of the baby having a chromosome alteration. It is time to do the amniocentesis if necessary.

Amniocentesis

It is an invasive test.

It is done for remove a small amount of amniotic fluid. The fetal cells are then isolated in this liquid and their DNA is analyzed. The baby is karyotyped and chromosomal alterations are ruled out. They will also tell us the sex of the baby.

Before performing it, they will do an ultrasound to locate the placenta. The baby and the umbilical cord. The test is performed with continuous ultrasound monitoring.

They perform a puncture in the abdomen until we reach the amniotic bag, it is important to be very still.

Although final results take a couple of weeks, in 48 or 72 hours we will have an approximation to the final result.

What discards: alterations in the number and shape of chromosomes.

It is important to have rest two or three days after taking the test.


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