Your Baby's Development: Week 33

Week 33
You are 33 weeks pregnant. During these last few weeks of your pregnancy, billions of developed neurons in baby's brain help her learn about her environment. In fact, they now allow her to listen, feel and even 'see'; the eyes' pupils can detect light, constrict and dilate, so your baby can now make out dim shapes. Your baby's lungs have now almost completely matured.

Your Baby Continues to Gain Weight
Baby's skin color has turned from red to pink. This is due to fat accumulation under the skin. Fat will continue to be deposited under your baby's skin in preparation for his arrival in the outside world. Babies tend to gain a good deal of their weight in these final few weeks before birth. Just like a newborn, your baby is sleeping a lot. During sleep, he even experiences rapid eye movement (REM), the dreaming stage of sleep.

Your Baby's Birth Presentation
By now, your baby is in position for delivery. Your health care provider will be able to tell you if your baby is positioned head or bottom first.

With labor and delivery just a few months away, you should consider just how you will cope with pain during labor. Think about writing up a birth plan. By doing this, you can decide exactly how you will deal with pain relief during childbirth. You can choose from breathing techniques like those taught in Lamaze classes, as well as hypnobirthing, Leboyer and more. There are also pain-relief medications given through an injection and epidurals.

Watch out for the following symptoms: severe headache; seeing "spots" or "flashing lights" while you are resting; a sudden increase in swelling especially in your face; abdominal pain; or nausea, vomiting, and feeling sick. If you have any of these, you should contact your caregiver right away. This could be a sign of preeclampsia and it could be a very serious complication of being pregnant. Pre-eclampsia is generally characterized by swelling and high blood pressure as well as having protein in the urine.

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