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17 Weeks Pregnant

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Here's what's happening during Week 17 of your pregnancy:

Your Growing Baby

Your baby is about as wide as your palm, about six inches tall, and weighs about four ounces—about as much as a bar of soap. She now weighs more than your placenta. Your baby is now covered with a downy layer of lanugo, which swirls in fingerprint-like formation over her whole body. Her skin is still thin. Brown fat, a special type of fat that plays a role in body heat generation, is being deposited. In the next few weeks, your baby's eyes will begin to move beneath their fused lids in a side-to-side sweeping motion.

Your Growing Belly

As your breasts grow, they'll be sensitive and tender and sometimes just plain painful. The placenta is now a fully functional network of blood and tissue that distributes nutrients and removes waste. You're looking pregnant, but not so much that it's difficult to put your socks on. You may even get that pregnancy glow, a radiance that comes from extra blood flow to your skin. And you'll start to feel a lot of the baby's movements soon.

Tips & To-Do's

The Home Body

Working out can be a challenge, especially if you're not a gym person. We've got the answer: a workout you can do in the comfort of your own home. This routine, based on Elizabeth Trindade's "Preparing to Push" prenatal workout program, features 6 simple exercises to help you stay strong now and regain your shape faster after giving birth.

Here's how to get started now.

Things to think about this week: Tell your employer you're pregnant if you haven't already done so. Be ready with a plan for your maternity leave as well as ideas about who will cover for you during your absence.

 

Pregnancy Milestones:

Below are some of the most important milestones of your pregnancy. Click on any week to read more, or view our Week-by-Week Pregnancy page to see your pregnancy at-a-glance.

4-weeks-pregnant

 

Week 4: Positive test: You're pregnant! You may be starting to feel bloated, crampy, tired and moody, and experiencing sore breasts, nausea/vomiting and a frequent need to pee.  But don't worry if you're not—that's normal.  Read more about being 4 weeks pregnant.

 

8-weeks-pregnant

Week 8: Your doctor may look or listen for the baby's heartbeat with an ultrasound. Once you see or hear it, your miscarriage risk drops to about 2 percent. He'll also give you an official due date—though very few women actually deliver on that day.  Read more about being 8 weeks pregnant.

 

 

10-weeks-pregnant

Week 10: Your inch-long baby is now called a fetus. While the icky side effects of pregnancy may be starting to abate, your anxiety about having a healthy baby might be increasing.  Read more about being 10 weeks pregnant.

 

 

15-weeks-pregnant

Week 15: The "window of opportunity" for many important screening and diagnostic tests opens this week, should you decide to undergo them.  Read more about being 15 weeks pregnant.

 

 

16-weeks-pregnant

Week 16: Sometime between 16 and 22 weeks, you'll start to feel your baby move.  Read more about being 16 weeks pregnant.

 

 

29-weeks-pregnant

Week 29: The basketball-sized lump in your belly may be inhibiting shoe tying, leg shaving and the like. The fetus is increasingly sensitive to light and sound.  Read more about being 29 weeks pregnant.

 

 

36-weeks-pregnant

Week 36: The baby may drop lower into your pelvis in preparation for delivery. This should make it easier to breathe—yet your pee breaks will become ever more frequent.  Read more about being 36 weeks pregnant.

 

 

Click here to read more about every week of pregnancy on our Week-by-Week Pregnancy page.

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Sometime between 16 and 22 weeks, you'll start to feel your baby move.


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