Everything you need to know about the first weeks of pregnancy

The most, perhaps, the most responsible period of pregnancy is the first weeks. Up to the 9th week of pregnancy, while the embryonic period is in progress, the baby's organs are actively being 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 a real threat.

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

Features of the first month

The first week of pregnancy begins when the woman is not yet pregnant at all - with the onset of menstruation before conception. It may seem strange and even ridiculous, but in fact it really is.

We are used to thinking that pregnancy begins when the fact of conception has taken place, but obstetricians all over the world are accustomed to counting the gestation period not from ovulation, not from conception, but from the first day of the last menstruation preceding the "pregnant" cycle.

Perhaps, it would be much more correct and more convenient to count from conception, and there would be no confusion with determining the timing of pregnancy: the child exists in the uterus for a certain number of weeks, days, and this can be considered the only correct period. But this is the main difficulty - it is almost impossible to determine the exact date of conception, because a normal healthy adult woman leads 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 release of the egg from the follicle ...

Some women find it difficult to tell when they ovulate at all. That is why it was adopted obstetric counting system:

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

The main thing that everyone planning a pregnancy needs to know is that the actual gestational age is at least 2 weeks away from obstetric in the smaller direction.

Therefore, you should not 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 term, and the woman who calculated the term from the middle of her cycle or from intercourse, if she is sure that she knows when everything happened.

In the first weeks of pregnancy, incredible processes occur - in total a complex multicellular organism develops from one cell... All processes are very delicate 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, since medicine still cannot explain many processes and mysteries of the embryonic period.

Conception: conditions and chances

Conception is a complex process that takes place only when a number of conditions are met. But there is also a lot of mysterious and unexplored, not amenable to the laws of physics, medicine, logic in it too - this is how sometimes pregnancy occurs in an infertile couple, whom doctors have made a reasonable diagnosis, and for a healthy couple, for some unknown reason, conception does not occur.

Conception is a short but capacious process that does not last long, only during the time of the fusion of two gametes - male and female. Then the embryonic period of the baby's development will begin. A man is constantly fertile. He is capable of procreation at any time, if, of course, he is healthy.

But the lady's situation is different - she has the ability to conceive a child only during the day. You heard right - exactly one day. This is how long the egg lives. However, spermatozoa live much longer, and therefore they are able to wait for the oocyte in the genital tract by the time of ovulation, if sexual intercourse occurred 3-4 days ago.

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

Most women ovulate in the middle of the female cycle. If it lasts 28 days, then the release of an egg ready for conception occurs most often on the 14th day of the cycle, and with a cycle duration of 30 days, it is worth waiting for ovulation on the 15th day. An incomprehensible situation may be in women with an irregular cycle, but even here there is a way out - ultrasound diagnostics will help to establish the moment of ovulation, as well as special test strips that respond to a high concentration of estrogen in the body (it is this hormone that triggers the release of the egg).

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

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

The oocyte leaves the follicle and remains for 24 hours in the ampullar part of the fallopian tube. It is there, after passing through the vagina and the uterine cavity, that sperm need to get there. Only the strongest reach. Millions of sperm cells suffer huge losses even in the vagina, because there is high acidity.

At the time of ovulation, the discharge becomes more abundant and this somewhat reduces the acidity of the environment, which is harmful to sperm. It can take up to 40 minutes from the moment of intercourse and ejaculation to fertilization.

The oocyte has reliable three-layer membranes. Breaking through such defenses can be difficult. The attack is massive, many male cells are fighting for the right to be the first to penetrate the female reproductive cell. The sperm heads secrete aggressive substances that dissolve the oocyte membrane, but still one gets inside... Once this happens, the oocyte membranes become impervious to others. Spermatozoa that are "unlucky" are doomed to death.

"Lucky" throws the tail, which he needed to move, and the cells begin to merge. Right now all the information about the new future person is being laid: his gender, his interests and preferences, a tendency to certain diseases. The genome contains information about the color of hair, skin, growth and complexion of the future person.

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

Already at this stage, various anomalies and difficulties may arise, which, however, a woman cannot influence, - they occur at the genetic level, the consequences of such anomalies are mostly total.

If a woman has a low quality of eggs 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 structuring pairs of chromosomes of a new organism - if the structure is disrupted in 21 pairs, for example, an embryo with Down's disease is formed. If not one, but two sperm got inside the oocyte, the embryo is formed triploid with more pairs of chromosomes than necessary.

Such an embryo cannot grow and develop. Abnormal sperm morphology also increases the likelihood of mutations and chromosomal abnormalities. In this case, the embryo will develop, but not for long, within the framework of the anomaly. Most often, it all ends with a miscarriage at the earliest possible date or a frozen pregnancy.

The likelihood of conceiving is increased 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, does not use douching. In general, the chances of conceiving a child in each cycle in a healthy young couple are about 11%. This indicator decreases with age.

About 60% of couples become pregnant within six months, 30% of couples can conceive within a year. Women over 35 are more likely to conceive twins than young women - 25%.

Implantation symptoms

In order for a pregnancy to occur, one successful fertilization is not enough. It is necessary that from the fallopian tube, where everything happened, the embryo could safely reach the uterine cavity and gain a foothold there, since nature does not provide for the bearing of a fetus in any other place.

Everything that will happen now will begin to facilitate this process. Progesterone is produced - a hormone that should prepare the endometrium (the inner layer of the female reproductive organ) for implantation. The villi of the fallopian tube move and push the zygote downward. The egg itself is not only the largest, but also the laziest cell in the body - it cannot move.

The first 28-30 hours the zygote is busy formation of nuclei... It splits (does not divide!), The number of new cells as a result of cleavage increases, and the size of the original cell remains the same. All this time, she is gently pushed to the exit into the uterus.

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

Sticking occurs first. The embryo clings to the outer shell of the endometrium, and then this shell begins to secrete special substances that dissolve the endometrial cells, so the ovum sinks into the endometrium. The villi of the outer layer connect with damaged blood vessels and begin to nourish the baby with useful substances and oxygen from the mother's blood. The implantation process from adhesion to implantation takes about 40 hours.

The villi, if the implantation went well, begin to produce the hCG hormone, which should keep progesterone levels high and thereby prevent the onset of menstruation. Everything happens approximately 7-8 days after fertilization.

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

metal taste in the mouth;
feeling hot or chilly;
headache;
mood swings;
slight bleeding a week after ovulation (implantation bleeding of a smearing nature, more reminiscent of a meager discharge of brown or red, during the day);
an increase in body temperature up to 37 degrees;
weak aching pain in the lower abdomen.

Those who monitor their cycle and lead the basal temperature graphs can note a sharp decrease in BT (peak down) on the day of implantation, which is called implantation 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.

Important! By the time of implantation, there is already 3-4 obstetric week of pregnancy.

One of the most severe consequences of a violation of the implantation process is ectopic pregnancy... If the zygote fails to reach the uterus, it can anchor in the tube or then 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 condition will be threatening for the woman.

The fruit cannot be saved in any way. It is necessary to save a woman and her reproductive health, and therefore all the efforts of doctors are aimed at establishing and eliminating an ectopic pregnancy as early as possible.

Early signs of pregnancy

It often happens that a woman thinks up different pregnancy symptoms for herself in the absence of pregnancy itself. Usually women who really want to become mothers "sin" with this. Therefore, the assessment of signs prior to delay should be more critical. 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 these symptoms.

Runny nose... The nose is blocked, but there is no discharge. This phenomenon may be associated with high levels of progesterone, which promotes fluid retention in the body and leads to loosening of all mucous membranes, including the nasal passages.
Sleep problems... The desire to sleep constantly or insomnia can also be caused by changes in hormonal levels.
A special mood emotional instability... It is such a secondary effect on the human psyche that progesterone has. Many, even before the delay, note that they have become very sentimental and whiny or, conversely, irritable.
Heavy stomach feeling of bloating. Of course, it is impossible to directly recognize pregnancy by this sign, but many, describing their well-being at an early date, point to just such sensations. Before the delay, the lower abdomen often pulls, as with menstruation, but menstruation does not occur. 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 eve of menstruation looks almost the same as before the delay, in case of pregnancy. But the nipples become more sensitive. Women who have given birth and breastfeed before may notice colostrum droplets, but this is not necessary. Quite often, the breast does not behave as usual: if it was tense before menstruation, then it becomes softer before the delay and vice versa.
Diarrhea, diarrhea, nausea. These signs are unusual in the early stages, and, rather, are not associated with pregnancy, but with food poisoning or an intestinal disorder. The first signs of toxicosis rarely appear before the delay, and women begin to feel sick in the morning much later. But constipation and heartburn may well be, because progesterone relaxes the muscles not only of the uterus in order to prevent its tone, but also of the organs of the digestive tract.

When looking for the earliest signs of pregnancy, it is important to pay attention to the symptoms of a cold. Usually, a few days before the delay, a woman may feel chills, notice an increase in temperature in the evenings or in the afternoon up to 37 degrees. Many people think they are sick with ARVI. Actually it's about lowering immunity... This is an important part of how progesterone works. If maternal immunity is not suppressed, it can reject the fetus.

It is important not to take antibiotics or other medications at this stage. Limit yourself to warm tea and a soft blanket.Only developed angina needs treatment (medical!).

Often, women note headaches, aching lower back pain, exacerbation of thrush, herpes. Allocations in the first weeks are no different from ordinary ones - neither in consistency nor in quantity. They are white or colorless, scanty, odorless, and not itchy. In connection with a decrease in immunity, the throat may hurt, and cystitis may appear. Often, urination can be a sign of a disease of the genitourinary system, and a sign of early pregnancy.

A blood test for hCG will help to reliably find out about pregnancy - this is the earliest possible accurate diagnostic method. You can pass such an analysis as early as 3 days before the expected date of menstruation. It is better to look out two strips on the test on the first day of the delay or after it. In the blood, chorionic gonadotropin builds up faster than in urine.

The main recommendation of specialists in determining pregnancy is not to rush. Getting rid of anxiety until the moment when it will be possible to accurately detect an "interesting" position is also important because the stress in which a lady is throughout the entire time after ovulation has a negative effect on the development of the baby, and it is these first weeks that are incredibly important for him.

Embryonic period

The baby, fixed on the wall of the uterus, receives the status of an embryo. It weighs half a gram and is no more than half a millimeter tall. But already on such a tiny scale, events of universal significance are taking place:

after implantation, embryonic petals are formed, which will become the skin, organs of the child;
even before the mother's delay, the child's heart begins to form, and at 5 weeks of pregnancy (a week after the start of the delay) it begins to beat;
at 6 weeks, 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 until and after childbirth;
the organs of vision begin to form at 7 weeks, at the same time the digestive organs are formed.
germ cells are formed at the 6th week of pregnancy;
toxicosis most often starts in women when the primary placenta appears - at 7 weeks;
all organs are formed by the 9th week of pregnancy.

This is where the embryonic period ends. The baby goes into the fetal period, becomes a fetus. Now the placenta will protect him, and his mother's sore throat and flu, chickenpox and herpes will be less terrible for him than in the first nine weeks. At the end of the first trimester, a woman will be able to take medications that were previously prohibited, of course, in consultation with the doctor. Organs and systems will grow and develop their functional interaction throughout the remaining weeks of pregnancy.

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

chronic diseases of the mother;
contact with paints, varnishes, gypsum dust, radioactive substances;
smoking and taking alcohol, drugs;
chronic stress and lack of sleep;
taking medications with teratogenic effects.

Common questions

There are questions that are more common than others, because the very situations in which women find themselves in the early stages are almost identical.

Alcohol, smoking

The effects of alcohol are especially dangerous in the event that a woman regularly drinks, which changes the set of DNA of her reproductive cells. Alcoholic mutations of sperm DNA in men are no less dangerous. If both partners are not alcoholics, and allowed themselves a glass of wine before conception, nothing bad will happen. For DNA to mutate, you need to drink not by glasses and for a long time.

Pregnancy is not always planned, and this does not mean at all that a woman does not want a child. But after the surprise with the stripes on the test, she may remember that she took alcohol after conception, unaware of the true situation. Before implantation (the first week after ovulation), the baby is not fed from the mother's blood. For him, the alcohol in her blood is invisible.

Then alcohol becomes dangerous, but again it all depends on the quantity and quality. Children, even very tiny embryos, have excellent compensatory mechanisms. Don't worry, the main thing is to stop drinking after the pregnancy has become apparent.

Sex life

You should not be afraid of sexual relations in the early stages of pregnancy, because orgasm helps to improve a woman's mood, has a positive effect on the blood circulation of the pelvic organs. Sex life is good, pleasant and definitely not worth giving up. The exceptions are situations when a woman has a threat of miscarriage, when pregnancy has occurred as a result of IVF. In these cases, sexual rest is indicated.

Travels

There are no restrictions on travel by air or rail during the first weeks of pregnancy.

But for women with the threat of termination of pregnancy or IVF pregnancy, it is still better not to fly by plane, but to choose any type of land transport. The flight can be dangerous for them.

When to see a doctor?

Profuse watery, green or grayish bloody spotting or profuse discharge in the first weeks of pregnancy - a good reason to immediately seek medical help. Up to 85% of threatened pregnancies can be saved if a woman receives help in a timely manner. It is better to get up early for registration at the antenatal clinic - this will allow you to go through all the examinations without unnecessary haste, and if pathologies are identified, then the chances of a successful outcome will significantly increase.

It is optimal to register at 6-7 weeks of pregnancy or later, but no later than 12 weeks.

Helpful hints and tips

Let's dwell on a few tips that will help women keep a child in the first months of his life.

Early dates - not the best time for dental treatment. X-rays may be required when visiting the dentist, and ionizing radiation is now contraindicated. Therefore, fluorography cannot be done.
Not worth it in the first weeks sunbathe in the solarium, stay in the open sun for a long time, visit the bathhouse and sauna.
If a woman plays sports, need to reduce loads, but not much. Squats, lifting weights, jumping are prohibited. Swimming, walking, yoga are useful.
If a woman took Duphaston before conception, be sure to you should continue to take the drug and after it. The exact terms will be indicated by the attending physician, and not reviews on the Internet.
Eat a balanced diet and right. Add more meat, vegetables, fruits to the diet. Take vitamins as needed. Don't forget about folic acid. If you suffer from toxicosis, eat fractionally.