17 weeks pregnant

This week marks the first time your baby is bigger than the placenta. You yourself might sweat more than usual. 

Your Child’s development
The little one measures about 13cm and weighs about 140g — the size of an onion. The little heart now beats about 150 times per minute. 

The brain: The brain keeps developing the senses of sight, smell, sound, and touch. Most of the survival reflexes your baby will have at birth are being perfected in the utero right now.

The heart: Your Child’s heartbeat is about 150 per minute and pumping about 100 pints or 47 liters of blood each day. Now, the heartbeat is fully regulated by the brain.

Baby move: Your Child is becoming more active in the amniotic sac — rolling and flipping.

Blood sugar: The pancreas is functioning better this week, and glucagon, one of the hormones it produces, can now be detected in the plasma. Together with insulin, whose production started about a month ago, the glucagon helps regulate blood sugar levels.

Your development
As your little one continues growing and getting bigger, you may notice stretch marks. Up to 90 percent of all expecting women get these streaks, which can be pink, red, yellow, tan, or, sometimes, brown. You’ll most likely notice them across your belly, butt, thighs, hips, or breasts.

Dreams: As a result of changes in your sleep, you may begin to experience strange dreams. If you often wake up at night, you are more likely to remember the dreams you had just before waking up than if you sleep until morning.

Sweaty palms: As a result of the increase in blood circulation, you may sweat more than usual. Another reason to keep it easy and avoid stress.

What you can do
To aid Your Child’s bone formation, make sure you’re getting plenty of calcium, magnesium, iron, and vitamins.

Lie on the left! To reduce the pressure your uterus exerts on your abdominal blood vessels, try to lie on your left side instead of your back.

Minimize stretch marks: You can try to minimize the appearance of stretch marks by ensuring you don’t gain too much weight — eating for two doesn’t mean literally eating twice as much. Also, some women believe that nourishing your skin from the inside by eating plenty of vitamin C-rich food can help. Creams and moisturizers can’t remove stretch marks, but you can cover them with cream or tan your skin in the sun to make them less visible.