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I am pregnanted.
Welcome to Hello Bump. We're making pregnancy less overwhelming and more manageable. I'm gracery, very pregnant for the very first time, and I can no longer open my fridge without drive reaching.
And I'm Miana Pittman. I'm a former Olympian, I'm a mother of six babies, and I'm training to be an obstitrician and a gynocologist.
Each episode, Jana and I will be holding your hand week by week through the mysterious, perplexing and sometimes it's a very weird miracle that is pregnancy week six. Yanna, how big is our baby? Our baby? I have your baby seven to be good, I have six been.
It's now about the size of a lentil seed.
See this is where it starts to contextualize, doesn't it a lentil seed? A lady bug?
Yeah, well let's go factual four to six millimeters. So it's made a massive big jumps from las week. It's it's almost a huge, but it's a huge compared to last week when it was only a millimeter.
Yeah, it feels like it's an object now, yes, absolutely not just the clump of cells exactly.
And if you had an early ultrasound you would now probably see a little thing in there, maybe not a heart, but yet hopefully but maybe not again. I don't want you to have it. We're still waking ladies. Another week please, but yes, it is growing nicely.
Maybe you can book it, but not bookase, but for week seven, thank you. I love it. And what's happening with the baby? How are they developing?
And as we've kind of just touched on, the biggest thing is it's heart starting to beat, which I think is a massive milestoning pregnancy like that is to me makes it it's real, the little heart beating in there. The other olgans are also continuing to grow, including the digestive system, which is really weird to think, and it's respiratory system, so how it's going to breathe. And there
might even be some facial features that are starting. We can't see them on ultrasound, but the things like the eyes and ears, and they starting the most weird and wonderful places. They actually start on the complete outside of the baby's head and then the eventually they'll move around invert in woods.
Yeah, exactly, it's quite a weird. My app talks about it's grown its nostrils, but doesn't have its nose. It's just holes, which again makes it feel like elucision. Absolutely, I can't deny that. Unfortunately, what happened, what's happening to me, and what's happening with us, what's happening with our body?
Increasing from last week more and more and more and more nauseous, and guys, at six weeks, it's gonna get worse, So we peek around the nine to ten week mark and then hopefully will get better. Continued fatigue. I actually found this week the most fatiguing, and I felt like it really feels like bad jet lag and you cannot get off the couch. And interestingly, for some women it's worse in your first pregnancy and it gets a little better,
and I found that. I found my first pregnancy was not for six I was in the middle of my Olympic career and couldn't train, couldn't do anything. Whereas I had my sort of subsequent pregnancies, I found a little easier, so hang in there. If it's really tough, try and outsource at this point, like you know, get someone to come and help you, because you really need that sleep. You know, you are growing a whole human inside, and expect some moodswings. There is definitely some ups and downs
going on this week. Some tears are not unusual.
Let's say at week six, that was the last point I could go into my kitchen just so hyper aware of the smells. And I think for me, I don't know if I was jet lagged feeling, but I definitely the hangover feeling was just all through the day, and then the nausea was definitely ramping up. But everything, as you've said, was really getting a lot more intense.
And I think it's also important to heart that everyone's symptoms are different, So don't freak out if you don't have any symptoms, Like someone, oh my god, it mustn't be real. It's not happening. I need to go and see my doctor really quickly. Someone won just get lucky. They just get lucky and they don't have much And you know, and if you're expecting multiples, which means twins or more babies, sometimes your symptoms are going to be worse, So I think it's again no comparisons.
That's a really good point. There's a woman, one of the women here in their Mum and me are office. She was like, I was one of those lucky ones, never had no orders. I never had anything, but I had a baby who didn't sleep. So it gets you any I've.
Had all of that, to be honest, Sometimes you get both is this normal?
Is normal? Is it normal? I have a question about I still have period cramps at this point.
It's your use for us getting used to accommodating a growing pregnancy. So you can imagine that it's especially if it's your first time. You haven't had that expanding little thing inside stretching the walls or the muscles of the uterus and the surrounding ligaments outside the uterus that are slowly going to expand up. So we get a lot of what's called round ligament pain. Not normally around the six weeks. I mean some women do, but it's more often a little bit later in pregnancy. But yes, all
these sort of aches and pains and things. Again, changes in hormone levels. Sometimes there's even the bit of fluid in the pelvis and things that can actually cause from the ovulatary syst so where you actually ovulated, from which it starts to produce progesterones to support the pregnancy. We call it the corpus lutium if you want to be really medical about it, but can also leak fluid and
irritate the abdomen. So it's also important to think though, if you are having pain, not just cramps, it is probably better to keep a close eye on it. And if you're concerned about it, just call someone, call your midwife or your GP to have a discussion about it.
And what about bloating? Is that okay, so it's still bloat, it's not pregnancy, but it's not pregnancy.
I'd love to be but no, at six weeks you'd be really unlikely. In fact, it's impossible. Let's just go there.
It's just blown or constipation. Yeah, me too, So that gets worse and worse. I thought I was having round ligament pains and my midwife was just like, no, that's just your bounds just working really slowly.
Yeah, transition slows down unfortunately because of progesterone, one of the main hormones of pregnancy.
But it's not as gratifying and there's no schedule anymore. No fluid, keep you fluid up.
Okay, I think there's one of the big key messages there to try and keep those bowers a bit more regular.
And what are some good things to do? What's on our to do list this week?
Well, as you know, we talked about booking your ultrasound. I think it's pretty important. This time in pregnancy is a little hard because you're just kind of in the waiting game. So you've got lots of things coming up in the future that you need to do. But at this point, you know what, I think you need to think really closely. You kind of touched on it with the abdominal cramps and things.
If you bleed.
Now, twenty to forty percent of women will bleed in pregnancy, particularly in the first tromester, and that's quite a lot, and it's not always a concern. It could be still implantation bleeding. It could be sometimes we get what's called a subcoreonic chemotoma, which is it's big words of guys, but it's just a bit of like a bruise around where the baby is, around the amigniotic sack. Most of
the time they resolve. So even if you see that on your ultrasound next week, ninety percent of the time it goes away.
What's the best thing to do in that case? If you do notice that you're spotting, is it? Are you at the level of we go to hospital or you book a GP appointment?
Every woman's individual. I've been down to d many, many, many times for someone spotting in pregnancy because there's a lot of anxiety and really wanting the pregnancy for me. You cannot do anything right now, guys, So if you are bleeding in early pregnancy, our concern is if you're bleeding heavily enough that we need to monitor you from a blood loss perspective. So I think GPS the right place you don't want to sit in a NED for four or five hours waiting to be seen by one
of us. Was in guyning doctors. So if your GP's concerned, they'll send you in. We often have what's called an early pregnancy Assessment clinic. Most public hospitals have one, so if you concerned, your GP can refer you to see one of the doctors. But at least it means you have an allocated appointment to see someone roughly within an hour of getting there rather than four or five in a ned. But the biggest thing there is if you haven't yet got a diagnosed pregnancy on ultrasound and you
have pain and cramping. Unfortunately, we have to raise that not all pregnancies end up in the uterus. Sometimes pregnancies can unfortunately end up in the filopian tubes, the ovaries, and even the abdomen or your cervix. They're called it topic pregnancies. So if pain and bleeding comes together and you haven't confirmed the pregnancies inside the uterus, that is a time it's an ed visit straight away.
If we're you're having our dating scan, it's seven weeks. But if you do have an ectopic pregnancy, is it at risk of rupturing before that seven weeks before they catch it?
Okay?
And at what point is it you've just lost the pregnancy or you're at risk of losing the filopian tube. I know this is scary things.
That's important. Yeah, So often ectopic pregnancies grow slower than into uterine pregnancies, which means a uterus maybe inside the uterus. So the highlight there is if you have any pain and bleeding, which you're concerned about, go to ED or at least to you GP for a discussion, and if
they're concerned, they'll send you in. Most of the time, even though it's early, we'll do an ultrasound to check and because you can still see a gestational sackle or at least a pregnancy, a clear cystic structure inside the uterus,
that will likely be a pregnancy. Things to be concerned about, which not not for you guys to worry, but more for me to worry about, is if the baby has a heartbeat already and it's in the tube, if there's already bleeding inside the pelvis, that's unfortunately a time when we will say, look, we wouldn't manage you medically, so we can give often given an injection in the arm to manage them, which is called methotrexate, or we take you to theaters and unfortunately sometimes have to remove the
fallopian tube. Big discussions. Okay, so this is a conversation probably outside of our pregnancy podcast, but if you are concerned about that, it's always, always, always better to come to hospital and get checked, because it's not the loss
of the tube I'm worried about. You've got another one okay, And ironically, even if you lose one tube, you still have a ninety percent chance of getting pregnant because that amazing second tube floats around, would you believe inside, and the actual egg has some chemo receptive factors that actually allows it to find the other tubes. So even if you opulate from the left ovary but don't have a tube on that side, most of the time the other
filopian tube will collect it. So that's not your concern. My concern is your bleeding becomes so heavy that your life is compromised. So and topic pregnancy is absolutely not something to wait for, even if the pregnancy is very much wanted.
I think that's probably overall advice for pregnancy is that there's no dumb questions.
Yes, I agree, Yes, thank you.
It's the best advice for this week. Yeah, no dumb questions. Always ask cups will always be safe because also a medical professional would have heard it all before.
Exactly and they can reassure.
You in the toolkit. This week, I've got drink lots of water because it's starting to feel hot just living, and also to just do outdoor dining just in case if you're at a restaurant pick a table outside.
Yeah, because of the heat.
The heat, you don't know what smells are going to come past. You don't know if someone is going to order something next to you that's now repulsive to you. So yeah, that was too I've got.
Largely because we need to prepare for the next few months. I think it's time to also think about who's going to be around with you around the time of birth. So just invite that person to your outdoor dining experience or a couple of people you know. You can do it as in a bit of an interview style, but it's you're going to need your family and friends around you for pregnancy and birth, and so probably time to start thinking about who those people are going to be.
Yeah, find your confidence. 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. This episode of Hello Bump was made in partnership with Huggies Bye Bye