Everything you need to know about the first weeks of pregnancy

Perhaps the most important period of pregnancy are its first weeks. Up to 9 weeks of pregnancy, while the embryonic period is going on, the baby’s organs are actively laid and formed, and therefore any negative interference of internal and external harmful factors can cause defects and put the survival of the crumbs under real threat.

To know the features of the very first weeks of pregnancy is necessary not to be nervous and worry about the condition of the child, but to to provide him with the most comfortable and favorable conditions for development.

The first week of pregnancy begins when the woman is not pregnant at all - with the onset of menstruation, preceding conception. This may seem strange and even ridiculous, but in reality this is indeed the case.

Perhaps it would be much more correct and convenient to keep counting from conception, and there would be no confusion with the definition of gestational age: the baby exists in the uterus for a certain number of weeks, days, and this can be considered the only correct term. But the main difficulty lies in the fact that it is almost impossible to determine the exact date of conception, because a normal healthy adult woman has an active sex life, and ovulation does not always happen strictly by the clock at a certain time, there may be a later or earlier egg release from the follicle .

Some women generally find it difficult to say when they have ovulation. That is why was adopted obstetric counting system:

• the beginning of the first week of pregnancy is the first day of the last menstruation;
• the first day of delay of the next period is the fourth week of pregnancy;
• pregnancy lasts 40 obstetric weeks (each 7 days);
• pregnancy lasts 10 obstetric months (in each exactly 4 weeks);
• for 40 obstetric weeks, the baby spends 38 weeks (9 calendar months) in the mother's body from conception to birth.

So you shouldn’t blame the doctor for setting the wrong deadline and trying to prove the opposite to the specialist. Both are right: the doctor who set the obstetric period, and the woman who calculated the period from the middle of her cycle or from the sexual act, if she is sure that she knows when everything happened.

In the first weeks of pregnancy, incredible processes occur - just from one cell develops a complex multicellular organism. All processes are very subtle and delicate. Then, when the baby is formed, he will be more protected, but for now his life and health depend partly on the behavior of the mother, and partly on the will of higher powers, because medicine still cannot explain many of the processes and riddles of the embryonic period.

Conception is a complex process that takes place exclusively under certain conditions. But there are a lot of mysterious and unexplored physics that cannot resist the laws of medicine, there is a lot of logic in it - sometimes pregnancy occurs in a couple of infertile, which the doctors made a reasonable diagnosis, and in a healthy couple for unknown reasons, conception does not occur.

Conception is a short but succinct process that lasts only a short time, only during the time of the merger of two gametes - male and female. Then the embryonic period of development of the baby will begin. Man is fertile all the time. He is able to continue the race at any time, unless, of course, healthy.

But the ladies are different - she has the ability to conceive a child only during the day. You heard right - just days. So much lives egg. However, spermatozoa live much longer, and therefore are able to wait for the oocyte in the genital tract by the time of ovulation, if sexual contact occurred 3-4 days ago.

Therefore, the fertile window of a girl or woman begins 3-4 days before the expected ovulation and lasts exactly one day after it. Since ovulation itself may shift and happen a little later, it is also customary to add to the second part of the fertile window (post-ovulation) 2-3 days. Thus, if you are planning a pregnancy, making love with special diligence is worth from 10 to 16-17 days of the menstrual cycle.

Ovulation in most women occurs in the middle of the female cycle. If it lasts 28 days, then the release of an egg cell ready for conception occurs most often on the 14th day of the cycle, and with a cycle duration of 30 days it is 15 days to wait for ovulation. The situation may be incomprehensible for women with an irregular cycle, but there is a way out too - to establish the time of ovulation will help ultrasound diagnosis, as well as special test strips that respond to a high concentration of estrogen in the body (this hormone starts the process of release of the egg).

Many women claim that they feel and determine the approximation of ovulation by quite characteristic changes in your body:

• increased sexual desire;
• abundant, like raw chicken protein, discharge from the genitals;
• rupture of the follicle may be accompanied by slight pain in the ovarian region (on the right or left side, depending on whether an egg cell is formed on the right or on the left);
• increases breast sensitivity.

The oocyte leaves the follicle and remains for a day in the ampullary part of the fallopian tube. It is there, having passed the vagina and uterine cavity, you need to get sperm. Only the strongest reach. Millions of sperm cells suffer huge losses even in the vagina, because there is high acidity.

The oocyte has reliable trilayers. It is not easy to break through such a defense. The attack is widespread, many male cells fighting for the right to be the first to penetrate the female sex cell. Sperm heads secrete aggressive substances that dissolve the oocyte membrane, but inside gets all the same one. Once this happens, the membranes of the oocyte become impenetrable to others. Spermatozoa that are “unlucky” are doomed to death.

The “lucky one” throws off the tail that he needed for movement, and the cell fusion begins. All the information about a new future person is being laid right now.: his gender, his interests and preferences, the propensity for certain diseases. The genome contains information about the color of the hair, skin, growth and complexion of the future person.

The egg itself becomes a zygote - this is the very first stage of development of the baby. Just one cell, but in it - the whole universe.

If a woman has poor egg quality or the functional characteristics of her partner’s sperm are reduced, conception may not occur at all. Even if cell fusion occurs, there may be errors in the structuring of pairs of chromosomes of the new organism — if the structure is broken in 21 pairs, for example, an embryo forms with Down's disease. If not one but two sperm get inside the oocyte, the embryo is formed triploid with more pairs of chromosomes than needed.

Such an embryo cannot grow and develop. Disruption of sperm morphology also increases the likelihood of mutations and chromosomal abnormalities. In this case, the embryo will develop, but not for long, as part of the anomaly. Most often, everything ends in miscarriage at the earliest time or missed abortion.

The probability of conception increases in young couples who lead a healthy lifestyle, take vitamins and folic acid. The chances of becoming parents are higher if the couple does not use intimate lubricants during sex, do not use douching. In general, the chances of conceiving a child in each cycle in a healthy young couple are about 11%. With age, this figure decreases.

In order for a pregnancy to take place, successful fertilization alone is not enough. It is necessary that from the fallopian tube, where everything happened, the embryo could safely get to the uterus and fix there, since nature does not provide for any bearing of the fetus in any other place.

Everything that will happen now, will begin to contribute to this process. Progesterone is produced - the hormone that the endometrium (the inner layer of the reproductive female organ) has to prepare for implantation. The villi of the fallopian tube are set in motion and push the zygote down. By itself, the egg is not only the largest, but also the most "lazy" cell of the body - it does not know how to move.

The first 28-30 hours zygote is busy nucleation. It is crushed (not divided!), The number of new cells grows as a result of crushing, and the size of the original cell remains the same. All this time, it is gently pushed to the exit into the uterus.

At about 4 days the embryo, which already has about 16 cells, enters the uterus. He is now a morula. And on day 5, it becomes blastocyst. The blastocyst is in free swimming for about 2-3 days. It is not fixed and just floats in the womb. By the time it comes time to attach to the wall of the uterus, there are up to 200 cells.

First sticking occurs. The embryo clings to the endometrium with the outer shell, and then this shell begins to release specific substances that dissolve the endometrial cells, so the fertilized egg sinks into the endometrium. The villi of the outer layer are connected with damaged blood vessels and begin to feed the baby with nutrients and oxygen from the mother's blood. The process of implantation from sticking to implanting takes about 40 hours.

The villi, if implantation is normal, begin to produce the hormone hCG, which should maintain a high level of progesterone and thereby prevent the onset of menstruation. Everything happens about 7-8 days after fertilization.

Many women do not feel implantation at all, do not guess about it.But those who are attentive to their bodies, and have been planning a pregnancy for a long time, know that about a third of women can theoretically feel the following symptoms:

• taste of metal in the mouth;
• sensation of heat or chills;
• headache;
• mood swings;
• slight bleeding a week after ovulation (implantation bleeding of a spotting nature, more like a scanty brown or red color, during the day);
• increase in body temperature up to 37 degrees;
• weak aching pain in the abdomen.

Tracking their cycle and leading graphs of basal temperature, may note on the day of implantation a sharp decrease in BT (peak down), which is called implant retraction. A woman's lifestyle does not greatly affect the outcome of implantation. Its probability depends on the state of health, on the endocrine background, on the presence or absence of chromosomal abnormalities in the embryo.

One of the most serious consequences of implant impairment is ectopic pregnancy. If the zygote fails to reach the uterus, it can settle in the tube or later settle in the cervix. In this case, the development of the baby is possible only as long as it is very small in size. Then the state will be threatening for the woman.

The fruit does not save anyway. It is necessary to save a woman and her reproductive health, and therefore all the efforts of physicians are aimed at establishing and eliminating ectopic pregnancy as early as possible.

It often happens that a woman thinks of different symptoms of pregnancy in the absence of the pregnancy itself. Usually this "sin" women who really want to become mothers. Therefore, the assessment of signs before the delay should be treated more critically. Theoretically, they can be, but only in very sensitive women, and this rule does not apply to everyone without exception. Most often women pay attention to such symptoms.

• Runny nose. Nose lays, but there is no discharge. This phenomenon may be associated with high levels of progesterone, which contributes to fluid retention in the body and leads to loosening of all mucous membranes, including the nasal passages.
• Trouble sleeping. The desire to sleep constantly or insomnia may also be caused by changes in the hormonal background.
• Special mood emotional instability. It is this secondary effect on the human psyche that progesterone has. Many people even before the delay point out that they have become very sentimental and tearful or, on the contrary, irritable.
• Heaviness in the stomach sensation of bloating. Of course, it is impossible to directly recognize pregnancy on this basis, but many, describing their well-being at an early period, point to such feelings. Before a delay, it often pulls the lower abdomen, as during menstruation, but does not occur during menstruation. This is due to increased blood circulation in the pelvic organs after implantation of the embryo.
• The chest gets bigger and hurts. Visually, the breast on the threshold of menstruation looks almost the same as before the delay, in the event of pregnancy. But nipples are becoming more sensitive. Women who have previously given birth and are breastfed may notice droplets of colostrum, but this is not necessary. Quite often, the chest does not behave as usual: if before the menstruation it was tense, then it becomes softer before the delay and vice versa.
• Diarrhea, diarrhea, nausea. These signs are not typical of early terms, and, rather, are associated not with pregnancy, but with food poisoning or intestinal disorder. The first signs of toxicosis rarely appear before the delay, and women start nauseous in the mornings much later. But constipation and heartburn may well be, because progesterone relaxes the muscles not only the uterus, to prevent its tone, but also the organs of the digestive tract.

In search of the very first signs of pregnancy, it is important to pay attention to cold symptoms. Usually, even a few days before the delay, a woman may feel chills, notice a rise in temperature in the evenings or after dinner to 37 degrees. Many people think that they are sick with ARVI. In fact deal in reducing immunity. This is an important part of the work of progesterone. If you do not suppress maternal immunity, he can reject the fetus.

Often women note headaches, aching back pain, exacerbation of thrush, herpes. Discharge in the first weeks is no different from the usual - neither the texture nor the amount. They are white or colorless, scanty, odorless, not itchy. In connection with a decrease in immunity, the throat can ache, cystitis appears. Often, urination can be a sign of the disease of the genitourinary system, and a sign of early pregnancy.

The main recommendation of specialists in determining pregnancy is not to hurry. It is also important to get rid of anxiety until the moment when it will be possible to accurately detect the “interesting” position because the stress in which the woman is in for the entire time after ovulation negatively affects the development of the crumbs, and these very first weeks are incredibly important for him

Baby, entrenched on the wall of the uterus, receives the status of an embryo. It weighs half a gram and does not exceed one half millimeter in height. But already on such a tiny scale, events of universal significance take place:

• after implantation, germinal petals are formed, which will become the skin, organs of the child;
• even before the mother’s delay, the baby begins to form a heart, and at 5 weeks of pregnancy (a week after the onset of the delay) it starts to beat;
• at week 6, the neural tube and the immune system are formed;
• the nervous system begins to form at the 7th week of pregnancy and continues to do so right up to and after birth;
• organs of vision begin to be laid at 7 week, at the same time digestive organs are formed.
• germ cells form at 6 weeks gestation;
• toxicosis most often starts in women when the primary placenta appears - at week 7;
• all organs are formed by the 9th week of pregnancy.

At this point, the embryonic period ends. The baby goes into the fetal period, becomes a fetus. Now his placenta will protect him, and his mother's angina and flu, chickenpox and herpes will be less scary for him than in the first nine weeks. At the end of the first trimester, a woman will be able to take medicines that were previously prohibited, naturally, in consultation with the doctor. Organs and systems will grow and improve their functional interaction during the remaining weeks of pregnancy.

The most dangerous week in the first trimester - 2-3, 6-7, 8-9. Causes that may affect fetal development in the first weeks are numerous:

• chronic maternal illness;
• contact with paints, varnishes, gypsum dust, radioactive substances;
• smoking and taking alcohol, drugs;
• chronic stress and lack of sleep;
• medication with teratogenic effects.

There are questions that occur more often than others, because the very situations in which women fall in the early stages are almost identical.

The effect of alcohol is especially dangerous. in the event that a woman systematically drinks, which changes the set of her germ cells.No less dangerous, and alcoholic mutations of the DNA of spermatozoa in men. If both partners are not alcoholics, and allowed themselves a glass of wine before conceiving, nothing terrible will happen. To DNA mutated, you need to drink glasses and long.

Pregnancy is not always planned, and this does not mean that a woman does not want a child. But after a surprise with stripes on the dough, she can remember that she took alcohol after conception because of ignorance of the true situation. Before implantation (the first week after ovulation), the child does not receive nutrition from the mother's blood. For him, alcohol in her blood is invisible.

Then alcohol becomes dangerous, but again it all depends on the quantity and quality. In children, even very tiny embryos, excellent compensatory mechanisms. Do not worry, the main thing is to stop drinking after the pregnancy has become apparent.

You should not be afraid of sexual relations in the early stages of pregnancy, because orgasm helps to improve the mood of a woman, has a positive effect on the blood circulation of the pelvic organs. Sex life is helpful, pleasant and refuse it definitely not worth it. The exceptions are situations when a woman is at risk of miscarriage, when pregnancy is due to IVF. In these cases, sexual rest is shown.

There are no restrictions on traveling by air or rail in the first weeks of pregnancy.

Copious watery, green or greyish, blood smearing or copious in the first weeks of pregnancy - a good reason to immediately seek medical help. Up to 85% of pregnancies at risk can be saved if a woman receives help in a timely manner. It is better to get registered in the antenatal clinic earlier - this will allow you to go through all the examinations without haste, and if pathologies are identified, the chances for a successful outcome will increase markedly.

Let us dwell on several tips that will help women save the child in the first months of his life.

• Early dates - not the best time for dental treatment. An x-ray may be required when visiting a dentist, and ionizing radiation is now contraindicated. Therefore, fluorography can not be done.
• Not worth it in the first weeks of sunbathing in the solarium, stay long in the open sun, visit bathhouse and sauna.
• If a woman goes in for sports, need to reduce the load, but not much. Squatting, weight lifting, jumping is prohibited. Useful swimming, walking, yoga.
• If a woman took "Duphaston" before conception, be sure to should continue to take the drug and after it. The exact timing will indicate the attending physician, and not reviews on the Internet.
• Eat well and correct. Add more meat, vegetables, fruits to your diet. Take vitamins if necessary. Do not forget about folic acid. If suffering from toxicosis, eat fractional.

How your baby develops in the first weeks can be found in this video.