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I am pregnant again.
Welcome to Hello Bump.
We're making pregnancy less overwhelming and more well manageable, hopefully. I'm Grace Reuby, I'm pregnant for the first time, and I think I have a bump.
I love it.
Homona Pittman, former Olympian mother of six, an obstetric and Guani register. I do definitely have leftover bumps from my six children, but not one of my own.
Currently, each episode, Diana and I will be holding your hand week by week through the mysterious, perplexing, and ever changing miracle that is pregnancy.
Week eleven, Welcome to week eleven.
What slice is our baby?
We're cracking on, aren't we? So the baby is now the size of a lime.
Oh I loved lime. That a drink?
No, just maybe I'm maybe I'm reminiscing on like think Mexican tequilo esque.
Or it could be a fig or.
A doughnut whole if you're that way in kind.
A golf ball.
So three point eight to five centimeters so it's definitely significantly grown yet again from last week, which is obviously what we.
Want, and how have they progressed.
A couple of things this week, So three to four key developments. We're going to go with the organs first, so they're starting to function more so they're actually working. The pancreas itself is making insulin.
Isn't that nuts? Yeah?
I think it's gorgeous. The baby's face is more distinct. Remember how we talked about where the eyes and ears started on the outside of the face. They're now migrating to where they'll finally stop in the correct spot. The baby's now making small amounts of its movements with its limbs. Now they're not purposeful. So it's interesting to know that for quite a while the baby will be almost scare itself. It'll go, whoa, I've moved.
We realize it's alive.
I don't revenize it's alive yet, but it can't make purposeful movement. Okay, so it's just that, not that we can feel it yet at this gestation, but it's starting to. Like if on ultrasound, you'll see little fluctuations in the way the baby's moving.
Some friends who are having their second pregnancy said that around this time they've felt movement because they know what they're feeling. For your face says, no, you can't feel anything.
At eleven weeks. I mean, I hear it, but I can tell you that. I mean, I can't say for it purposefully, like you know, there's there could be miracles out there, I guess, and if there's more than one baby, I think most of my colleagues would agree that it's gas. You've got wind and you probably need to go to the loo.
What's happening to me?
I think I taught my midwife even at one point I was like, I feel like I feel flutters, and she goes, you have a big artery running down there, so I think you could be feeling your blood move or.
And increased blood volume. Again, remember we are by now you've put at least twenty percent more blood flow through your body, possibly even thirty percent, so it'll get up to fifty percent more. So you're carrying a good leader and a half more blood than you did before you were pregnant.
And when you have that increased blood volume, what are the things that you look out for? Like, are there changes that we would recognize within our body that there is more blood.
Lots of them, and hopefully we'll focus on some of them, specifically Grace over the next couple of episodes. But like your heart races a bit faster, your blood pressure decreases then increases. So it's interesting throughout pregnancy that there's periods where it gets lower and then it gets higher. There's your gum bleeding, that there's a swelling in your legs, there's increased salivation. Anything you can think of where more blood volume would make you work more, in other words,
more sweat. All of that's related to the increased blood volume.
They sound like symptoms of a terrible disease.
I've mean right now with your noise, it sounds like it is a bit of a terrible disease. But yeah, yeah, no, it gets better, okay sort of?
Is this normal?
Is it normal? My?
Is this normal for you?
Is?
And you know this could be an awkward topic for some people, but I have noticed a lot more discharge and I wouldn't say any of it's a scary color, but it's just the frequency and the volume.
Is that a common thing to happen.
I think you hit the nail on the head. That is it normal? So we call this loukuria? So is it a normal white increase of your you know, discharge you get just before you have a period, for example, fine, happy with that? Is it itchy? Is it smelly? Thrush is really common in pregnancy. It's very very you know, wouldn't come in and they like, oh, I've got an itchie vagint I've never had it before outside of pregnancy. It could be that. So sometimes it is better for
us to just check it. So just do a little low vaginal swab and they just check it if it's positive. You know, treating thrush is easy in pregnancy, which we try to avoid oral thrust treatment. So if you are someone who has thrush at home, guys, I'd much prefer to use a topical treatment in the vagina and around the VOVL area, ideally not oral. Some doctors will prescribe it orally, but it's got to be by a doctor,
not self prescription because it is over the counter. If you remember Grace, if you think you have thrush, go get.
It checked again.
It's that blood volume, so you have increased I know, it sucks, doesn't it. You have increased blood flow to the pelvic organs and the vagina and the cervix, so you are going to have increased discharge. It's for a couple of things. The mucus plug and the cervical fluid is actually keeping infections out outside of the cervix and outside of the uterus, so it's a positive thing. We also have a quite amazing phenomenon with the cervix that
as it gets through pregnancy inverts a little bit. So we have different cells on the inside of the cervix which are calumnar and secretary cells, and then you have your sort of skin. Your square cells are outside and in the vagina and around the cervix, and so sometimes you can actually get more of those secretary cells coming sort of inverting the cervix and it can cause increased discharge. I think it's also a good point if you're not up to date with your phaps here, I still want
you to have one in pregnancy. This is around the time that it's a good one to have, especially if you've got increased discharge. Get a swamp at the same time, check you if you've got thrush. Really important. It doesn't affect the pregnancy. There's no high increased miscarriage rate, get it done by a professional, because we make sure that we use only a special brush on it. It's safer in pregnancy. But it's definitely better to get it than wait.
Does UTI's come in anywhere within this discharge conversation? If things are untreated or are they completely separate things?
No, that's so important. I actually feel a bit naughty as a doctor for not thinking about this, So thank you grace. Chlamydia, gonorrhea, vaginismith all this kind of stuff still happens in pregnancy. A bacterial of aaginosis, I should say, so we don't want that going untreated. So it's very early in pregnancy. But those kind of infections can actually trigger pre term labor because they irritate the uterus, which can then cause contractions. So any type of infection is
essentially be treated. Even a urine retract infection can cause preterm labor. It just irritates the uterus again. So even if you have no symptoms, but funnily enough, your GP gets you to do a urine because you just go a bit more frequently and it comes back positive. We will treat it in pregnancy. So it's quite good and I guess the key is that is keep an eye on your body. If something's unusual, get it treated. Most likely it'll be nothing, but it's better to not sit on something.
One thing that shocked me is I know that New South Wales Health is looking into it at the moment. Is the increase of gestational syphilis.
Okay, yes, syphilis, and yes we're now treating now.
Anyway, Yes that women are tested for syphilis and chlmydia, which is great. They should be because the risk to the fetus if you do have it and untreated it is like forty percent.
It's immortality, especially if it's primary, if it's the first time you're having it. Yeah, we test syphilis every tremester, so one, two and three. So don't ladies be upset when we say it twenty eight weeks. Can we retest your rology your blood test for syphilis. It's not you. It is a routine guideline from the New South Wales
government now that we check it. It used to be considered high risk populations, so you know, more in an our indigenous women at one point, but it now is becoming more prevalent austraight wide and so therefore it's something that we know if we can get on top of, we can try and prevent.
Okay, apart from perhaps means, what else can we be doing in eleven weeks?
Now is the time that you should have had your nipt or at least have definitely booked in your first tremestero screening, because it's you know, eleven weeks is the start of when that time ultra is and if you're going with the government based one, it's got to be booked.
My little toolkit for people if they are still feeling sick is to eat a snack before bed.
To like it, yeah, to try it. I've learned a lot from last.
Episode about going for a walk before a bed as well, so I feel like putting those two things together is actually going.
To help better.
A snack, walk and a snack.
Yes, yes, I'm fast forwarding a bit of head here. I think you should start preparing for a playlist that you might like in birth now. Know it's a long way away, but I think you add one song a week. You're actually kind of also thinking about that birth process in advance too, so I think that's something we should start soon because your.
Job is birthing babies is there a song that you see pop up very frequently on people's playlists.
I've had like some of the most severe heavy rock in birthy and it's right down to Enya.
It's very interesting.
One that I love is actually a lady called Melissa Spillstead, so she actually does hypno birthing. So I'm just I'm very holistic when it comes to birth. You'll learn that over the next few weeks because I go into more of the midwifreelite. I was a duel love before I was a doctor, so very old school when it comes to the way we do things. But hypno Birthing is
a wonderful way to prepare for birth. And she does some really calm in music that basically walks you through the surges of labor, the contractions, and how to connect with your baby. So it's a beautiful you can download online.
But in the meantime, andya.
On recay Flow, let's get that. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Hello Bump. We have so many episodes of this series filled with tips and stories from women and experts who've been through it all before.
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This episode was produced by Courtney Ammenhauser with audio production by Tom Lyon. We'll catch you next time. Bye.
This episode of Hello Bump was made in partnership with Hikes Bye dixisen Kits