14 Weeks - 4th Month!

Your Baby

Your baby's body is growing faster now compared with its head, so the proportions are beginning to approach those you see in a newborn. Its neck is long enough to lift its chin off its chest, its legs have grown almost as long as its arms, and its intestines fit inside the abdomen. Your baby is filling out by putting on fat tissue.

As your baby's body grows, so do its muscles. On your baby's fingers, soft nails and fingerprints are forming. The gallbladder begins to make bile for digestion. Taking over for the liver, your baby's bones start to make some blood cells. During the last three months of pregnancy and for the rest of your baby's life, newly made blood will come from his bone marrow.

Facial features, too, are becoming more distinct. As the head has grown, the ears have moved to their proper places on the sides of the head. Its lips are well developed and teeth are forming underneath the gums.

In this month and the next, hair begins to grow on your baby's body. Eyebrows and eyelashes are forming, and a fine hair called lanugo covers its body and face in swirling patterns. Lanugo usually disappears before birth.

There are 4 to 6 ounces of amniotic fluid surrounding your baby this month. That's enough to allow a sample to be taken for a test called amniocentesis. Amniocentesis is most commonly recommended for mothers-to-be over the age of 35 because of an increased risk that the baby will have Down syndrome. The test may also be done if a problem with the development of the spinal cord is suspected.

The fetus is now 5 inches long and weighs nearly 4 ounces, just big enough to cradle in the palm of your hand.