At 25 weeks pregnant, a women is beginning to approach the third trimester in her pregnancy. For many women, this is an extremely exciting time. You are now well past the mid-point of your pregnancy, and your baby is continuing to grow at an astonishing rate. For those who receive regular sonograms, the growth of the baby will be immediately evident, both in terms of his size as well as his development. By this point, many of the symptoms of pregnancy will be familiar. However, there are some new changes in both the mother and the baby that generally occur around the 25th week.
Throughout the first few weeks of your pregnancy, your baby will have been developing quickly, but will not have been gaining all that much weight. Now, your baby will be about one and a half pounds and will be almost 14 inches long. From here on out, he will begin to gain weight with greater speed, and will become noticeably heavier each week. In addition to this weight and size gain, there are a number of wonderful developmental changes that will begin to take place. Your baby is now beginning to develop a spinal cord, as well as his joints and ligaments. Not only that, but many parents will now start to see the capillaries forming under the skin. If you are able, many parents love to document this point in their child’s life with multiple sonograms.
The baby is not the only one changing. As the baby grows, how the mother feels will begin to change. To accommodate your growing child, your uterus will now be about the size of a volleyball. When the uterus grows, it can put a great deal of pressure on the mother’s back. Sciatica is a common symptom of this pregnancy stage, and can cause severe pain in the back as well as a numbness in the legs and feet. Though this condition will generally go away when after the mother has given birth, mothers who are experiencing discomfort should schedule a visit to their doctor.
Many find that a sleeping pillow or a mattress pad can help alleviate some of this discomfort and make getting a good night’s sleep far easier. It may take trying a few different sleeping positions and configurations to find the most comfortable option, but once you have, you should be able to return to a somewhat normal sleeping pattern.
At 25 weeks pregnant, the number of changes that are happening to your child are absolutely astonishing.