(source: babycentre.com.au)You may notice about now, that your baby is much more active when you are having a bath or shower. He's responding to the light and noise by moving around inside you. While you're enjoying the warm water you may also notice that your breasts may begin to leak a little. They are already producing colostrum, the concentrated early milk that is the perfect feed for your newborn. As with many aspects of pregnancy, not all women have leaking breasts before their baby is born — so don't worry if it hasn't happened to you — on the plus side you won't need to wear breast pads yet.
You're in the home stretch. The third trimester typically starts at week 29 and lasts until you give birth, at around 40 weeks. Most women gain an average of five kilograms during this trimester. By this week, your baby weighs a little over 1 kilogram and may measure 38 centimetres from top to toe. At about this time, your baby can open his eyes and turn his head in utero if he notices a continuous, bright light shining from the outside. His fat layers are forming and his fingernails appear.
Boy oh boy is my baby active or what! As soon as I hit the 3rd trimester mark, I can now notice the big difference in getting a good night's rest. All of a sudden, I've realised my bub just loves to toss & turn & kick when I'm sleeping. This usually happens during the first hour of me trying to sleep. Then after falling asleep & then waking up in the middle of the night to pee, I've noticed my baby is sound asleep. I feel as though I have to be extra quiet while walking to the bathroom and then going back into bed just in case I wake him up & he kicks me in the gut all over again. But thank God he's a good baby & doesn't do that past midnight.
I've also noticed that if I decide to sleep in/over sleep, the baby tends to kick me to wake me up. However, if I wake up too early, I noticed too that the baby is still sleeping so it is me that wakes him up. Gosh it really feels like he's my siamese twin!
When you're heavily pregnant, the doctors/books advice every mother to sleep in a lateral position on your left hand side. This is to ensure all blood flow can stil flow to the vital organs of your body especially since your baby is now so big that it's in the way of proper blood flow in the mother's body (vs the right hand side). So the other night, I wasn't quite in my left hand side lateral position. Instead I was lying flat on my back (which is a bad bad thing to do especially in your 3rd trimester). Anyway, thank God I decided to turn & go back into the correct lateral position before I was totally konked out. Because for the first time in my life, I experienced pins & needles in my head!! Can you believe it? who in the world ever get pins & needles in their head? Which means I literally had no blood flow to the head for some time & I didn't even know it. So thank God I flipped my body in time! way too scary.. I told Mr M the next morning after I had fully digested the seriousness of what had happened.. So note to self: "Always sleep on your left hand side - lateral position (even if it's not your normal/comfy position - you will just have to teach yourself to get used to it! haiz.. )
