Fetal Development: Month 5
This is the fifth month of fetal development, the exciting stage where you begin to feel baby move and poke around inside you. Yes, baby can hear your voice and the noises around you, from your heartbeat to the vacuum cleaner to your favorite TV programs. And yes, baby tastes whatever mommy's been eating, too.
Week 18: I Can Hear You
Baby’s ears get connected to baby’s brain and baby begins to hear everything going in baby’s surroundings: mommy’s heartbeat, mommy’s stomach rumbling, or blood moving through the umbilical cord. Loud noises can even startle baby despite all the goings on inside the uterus. You might begin to feel baby’s little movements in the kicks and rolls baby is practicing, or those bouts of hiccups. And to cap this week’s milestones, baby’s fingerprints on fingers and toes complete baby’s unique signature.
Week 19: Vernix
Baby is about 6 inches long now, and weighs approximately half a pound! To protect this growing, squirming, punching little ball of life, a pasty white coating called vernix grows over baby’s skin. This covering protects baby’s skin from the amniotic fluid in the amniotic sac; otherwise, baby’s skin would be more wrinkled than a prune upon birth. Also, millions of motor neurons are developing in baby’s brain, helping baby make more and more of those reflexive muscle movements that you may begin to feel already.
Week 20: You’re Halfway There
This is it! Baby is about 6 1/2 inches long, and weighs close to 10 ounces. You may be able to detect if baby is a boy or a girl in an ultrasound, and baby now has thin eyebrows and eyelashes, hair on the scalp, and well developed arms and legs right down to the fingers and toes. Baby’s hearing continues to improve, and baby will be able to hear your voice despite all that amniotic fluid and vernix. If baby is a girl, her uterus is fully formed and her vaginal canal is starting to develop. If baby is a boy, his testicles begin to move down the abdomen to the developing scrotum area. “Quickening”, when you can feel baby moving inside you, usually occurs at this stage of fetal development.
Week 21: A Taste for Food
As part of baby’s developing systems, baby starts to swallow small amounts of amniotic fluid for hydration, nutrition, and also to get in some practice for eating after baby gets born. Since whatever you eat flavors baby’s amniotic fluid on a day to day basis, baby gets a taste of what kind of food is available in the world beyond. If you’d like baby to have a penchant for peas and broccoli, the fifth month is the time to train baby’s taste simply by eating them yourself. Also, as cartilage develops into bone, baby’s legs and arms are getting better proportioned, and the brain’s neurons get connected to the muscles, making baby’s movements more coordinated and less jerky.
Week 22: Touch
Baby’s sense of touch develops at this stage of fetal development, and baby starts reaching out for something to feel, like baby’s face, or baby’s umbilical cord. The other senses are fast developing, too, like taste buds on your baby’s tongue. If you shine a flashlight on your belly, baby may turn away from the light despite baby’s eyelids still being closed. If you or your husband talk to baby, if you use the vacuum cleaner or turn the TV volume up, baby can certainly hear that, too.
References:
Murkoff, Heidi and Sharon Mazel. What to Expect When You're Expecting. Workman Publishing Company, Inc. 2008
The Mayo Clinic. "Fetal Development." www.mayoclinic.com
The Westside Pregnancy Clinic. "Fetal Development." www.wpclinic.org
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