Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Bitsy Progress- Week 7

Week 7 of Pregnancy: Your Baby's Limbs Develop

How does your baby grow? Pretty fast, actually. At 7 weeks pregnant, your baby's length is approximately a quarter of an inch — the size of a blueberry. Sounds pretty tiny still? Consider this for a little perspective: Your baby is 10,000 times bigger now than it was at conception a month ago.
The biggest fetal growth this week is your baby's head (the better to store all those smarts in), with new brain cells being generated at the rate of 100 cells per minute. How's that for a budding genius? And talking about buds, your baby is going out on a limb this week as his or her arm and leg buds begin to sprout and grow longer (and stronger), dividing into hand, arm, and shoulder segments — and leg, knee, and foot segments (though the limb buds look more like paddles than hands or feet at this early stage).
Also forming this week are your baby's mouth and tongue. And although your embryo is just one month old, it's already gone through three sets of kidneys. The ones in place now are the permanent set and are poised to begin their important work of waste management. In about a week, your baby will start producing urine. Lucky for you, there's no need for diapers (yet). As your baby matures inside you, much of that urine will be excreted into the amniotic fluid, swallowed again by your baby, and then excreted again in a continuous cycle.

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