35th Weeks Pregnant: Pregnancy Week by Week

Your pregnancy is close to over now. This week marks your thirty-fifth week of pregnancy. Hard to imagine that your pregnancy is almost over. It won’t be long before you will be holding your little boy or girl in your arms. By now you have probably taken a childbirth class and have most of the things you need for your baby. If you haven’t written your birth plan yet, this week’s newsletter is for you. We are going to help you with ideas for your birth plan this week and also give you some things to remember for when you are in labor. We are going to give you a stages of labor cheat sheet in this week’s newsletter to help you remember what to do during each stage of labor.

Baby’s Development

By now at thirty-five weeks of pregnancy, the baby will weigh about 5-1/2 to 6 pounds and measures in at 18 inches long. Keep in mind that these numbers are guidelines and are not gospel. Every baby is different and they may weigh a bit more or less than these guidelines suggest. By this week, the baby’s organs are complete by this week. The liver and the kidneys are starting to produce waste.

The baby now has less space in the uterus to move, so now you will start to notice a slight decline in fetal movement. The baby’s hearing is fully functional, now is a great time to talk to your baby. Start the bonding process before they are born. When they hear your voice after birth, they will respond to the sound of your voice. Some women use baby talk and they feel silly sometimes but it is said that the baby respond better to higher pitch sounds than lower pitch.

If the baby is born at week thirty-five, they have a 99% chance of survival. The nervous system and circulatory systems are fully functional. The baby’s lungs are now 99% developed. The baby fat continues to grow underneath the baby’s skin to help protect them while they are being born, plus the baby fat keep the baby warm inside and outside the womb.

How Your Life’s Changing

Your uterus which was entirely tucked away inside your pelvis when you conceived now reaches up under your rib cage. If you could peek inside your womb, you’d see that there’s more baby than amniotic fluid in there now. Your ballooning uterus is crowding your other internal organs, too, which is why you probably have to urinate more often and may be dealing with heartburn and other gastrointestinal distress. If you’re not grappling with these annoyances, you’re one of the lucky few.

From here on out, you’ll start seeing your practitioner every week. Sometime between now and 37 weeks, she’ll do a vaginal and rectal culture to check for bacteria called Group B streptococci (GBS). (Don’t worry the swab is the size of a regular cotton swab, and it won’t hurt at all.) GBS is usually harmless in adults, but if you have it and pass it on to your baby during birth, it can cause serious complications, such as pneumonia, meningitis, or a blood infection. Because 10 to 30 percent of pregnant women have the bacteria and don’t know it, it’s vital to be screened. (The bacteria come and go on their own that’s why you weren’t screened earlier in pregnancy.) If you’re a GBS carrier, you’ll get IV antibiotics during labor, which will greatly reduce your baby’s risk of infection.

This is also a good time to create a birth plan. Using our form will help you focus on specifics like who’ll be present, what pain management techniques you want to try, and where you want your baby to stay after you deliver. It will give you a starting point to discuss your preferences with your medical team. Childbirth is unpredictable, and chances are you won’t follow your plan to the letter, but thinking about your choices ahead of time and sharing your preferences with your caregiver should take some of the anxiety out of the process.

What To Expect

The doctor will request that you start coming to appointments once a week until the end of the pregnancy. This is a critical time in your pregnancy and you want to make sure that the baby is ok and ready to be born in the head down position. Your doctor will monitor your blood pressure, urine analysis and the baby’s position and heartbeat. Going to the doctor once a week, is well worth the time. You will continue to experience some trouble getting comfortable while sleeping. But you should try sleeping on the left side or maybe sleep sitting up as much as you can.

You can expect swollen feet, hands and some facial swelling. Keep an eye on this swelling. If the swelling comes with headaches and nausea call your doctor right away. It could be nothing or it could be a sign or pre-eclampsia which means there is a problem with the placenta’s functioning. Try to stay away from stress now more than ever.

If you start to push yourself a bit you can experience some urine leakage. It is not comfortable and it can be a bit embarrassing. Even things like laughing too hard or coughing can bring on urine leaks. There is a bit more pressure placed on the bladder and that is why this happens. Talk to your doctor about Kegal Exercises. Once you master those, you can practice them about 50 times a day without over doing it.

Tips

Before you start any of the Kegal Exercises, talk to your doctor about doing these exercises correctly. They can really help you with stress but they can help with childbirth as well. If you have any questions, there only is about 7 weeks or less in the pregnancy. Now is a great time to ask your doctor any questions that you may have.