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Hello Producer Courtney here coming into your ears with a special treat because we have launched a brand new season of our pregnancy podcast, Hello Bump. This season is a week by week guide to pregnancy, holding your hand as your baby grows from the size of a tiny poppy seed all the way to the size of a pumpkin. And in this new season, it's hosted by Olympian mother of six and training obstetrician Yanna Pittman, as well as writer, podcaster,
and first time mum Grace rope Ray. So if you or someone you know is pregnant were just interested in learning about pregnancy, then this podcast is for you. We'll leave a link in the show notes so you can listen to every single episode of Hello Bump wherever you get your podcasts, and for now enjoy. We hope you love this episode of Hello Bump.
I am pregnant.
Welcome to Hello Bump. We're making pregnancy less overwhelming and more manageable, hopefully. I'm Grace Rifrey, a writer, actor, podcaster, and I am also pregnant for the very first time, and.
I'm Yana Pittman. I am a former Olympian mother of six, an obstetric and gania registrar, which basically means I deliver babies for a living, and.
With our experience combined, each episode will be holding your hand week by week through the mysterious, perplexing, and sometimes scary miracle that is pregnancy, all the way from a poppy seed to a pumpkin.
Week four.
So we're starting this podcast series at week four because that's usually when you've found out that you are pregnant. There's not a lot that happens between week one and three, and they will backdate it from your last period. So, Yana, how big is the baby at this point?
Ah? Well, your baby's about the size of a poppy seed.
At this point, or just like a speck of dust or glitter.
Yeah, a little cheer seat or something very small. It's basically a small clump of cells that's just embedded into the lining of your uterus by two point five millimeters. It's tiny.
What's happening to me?
So tell me what's going on in our bodies this week?
Well, implantation has just occurred. So your sperm has met your sperm, your partner sperm hopefully has met the egg, and then it's made its way down the fulopin and you've embedded into the uterine wall. So it's just now that you'll be starting to get a positive pregnancy test because you're making that beta hCG hormone that's the hallmark of pregnancy. The placenta itself is actually starting to grow. Your baby comes from different cells from the placenter, so
they grow at the same time, but independently. And right now your baby's actually only the size we actually call it, well, it's not even quite an embryo yet, but it's two layers at this point, and it'll slowly start differentiating into all the organs and the heart and the lungs and things over the next few weeks.
When does that placenta actually start to take over? Because at the moment, our body is just feeding everything and giving it all of its life. When does that placenta actually take over.
Well, it's funnily enough, it's actually not for several weeks, around between nine and ten weeks that at this point, the baby has what's called a yolk sack, that's actually feeding it. So when you go for an early ultrasound, but guys way too early, do not make an ultrasound booking yet, because that is one of the biggest problems. Women go now and they can't see anything, and then they freak out that they're already having a miscarriage and
it's just simply too early. But there is a yolk sac which will be one of the first signs on ultrasound that there's a baby inside your belly, and that is what feeds the baby for the first couple of weeks of pregnancy.
What I found interesting about this stage is that everything, all signs kind of led to it being my period. Yes, I was very bloated and I had cramps, and so I assumed that it was my period until it kind of got to like maybe two more days that I normally maybe my period would have come, and it didn't. So I took a test. But why do all signs lead to it being your period?
Unfortunately, they're pretty similar to the hormones of pregnancy. Obviously, issugu and progester are our main two big wammies changed quite considerably. Breast tenderness. I don't know if you got that at all, But that was my first sign. I remember walking outside in the cold of my nipples killing me and thinking what is going on? So all of those signs that can often, as you say, indicate pregnancy are unfortunately fluctuating hormones, which happened the same when your period is due.
So is that why they're backdate when you are technically your pregnancy starts, because it's all sort of part of the same journey, you know how Like when you find out you're pregnant already four weeks, you're already four weeks by.
Yeah, so we go gestational age or pregnancy age, so the age of the fetus is only like two weeks by the time you actually find out you're pregnant, But the pregnancy age, the whole lot of pregnancy starts from the first day of your last period. So theoretically, every month we're two weeks pregnant until our period comes and then we're not.
It's I just find this fascinating about how much I didn't know about my body until I got to this stage and exciting, yeah, or like embarrassing.
And for some daunting because obviously not all of us want to be pregnant and some of us get a little scared and find out that we are so, and that's when it is tricky to sort of think, well, do I want to continue with the pregnancy? Is this something I planned? What is it going to do to my life? And I can tell you as a mother of six, it does a lot. So it's a hard conversation to have with yourself when you first get those positive lines. And most of us, like yourself.
For I don't know whether you were you excited or no, not at all, like even though it was like wanted and I was aware of what unprotected sex could do. Yes, there was no contraception, I think for anyone listening. I had had my account tested and it was on the lower side in the high nines, which I'm thirty five, So it was a maybe start thinking about it. So I know a lot of people who have struggled for years. So we did start, and then it just happened very quickly, so I wasn't prepared.
But I do think it's a really good point to discuss, because you know, some people do have the desire and really, you know, really want to get pregnant, and then all of a sudden it's happened, and I know a lot of women, certainly some of my patients have discussed with me then in those first few weeks with all the hormonal changes and started to feel pretty crappy that they think, well, this is not really what I signed up for and do I even want to continue even though it was
a planned pregnancy, And I think we need to honor that that's a normal part of this process. A huge
life change is on the up. So please don't feel if you're listening to this, if that was you, that it doesn't mean later you won't bond with your baby or love the pregnancy and you know, and it's also okay if you actually do change your mind, Like I think that's a conversation that we're very lucky in Australia we can have, and we need to highlight that all women feel very differently through this period of gestation.
What's happening to me?
Well, that leads us into what is actually happening and what might be feel like. What are some common symptoms that could happen around this time.
Well, I think you highlighted them pretty well, thanks unfortunately to you experiencing them all. Breast tenderness, bloated, feeling around your tummy, twingy pains, even some spotting. So sometimes we get what's called an implantation bleed, and that's actually as
that little we care than parasites. A little parasite is basically nesting into your indimritual lining of your uterus, so eventually you know you'll make your little spiral arteries as part of your makeup, anatomically will join the supply so that you'll start eventually feeding your baby. But at this point they're pretty robust. Many people get pregnant very easily, particularly not wanting to earlier on in life.
It's funny I call it a parasite, but for different reasons, which we'll get to.
Is this normal?
Is it normal?
A couple of things about is it normal at this time? There's the symptoms that are the ones we spoke about, the implantation pain or potentially bleeding. What you do think it's your period. But one of the first things I noticed was an aversion to alcohol. Okay it was I hadn't taken a test yet, and now looking back, it feels like that was a potential signing. Is that quite early for avergins to come in now?
Look, I mean, I think you guys were trying so psychologically each month you are preparing it's possible. So there is that psychological factor that we avert foods we know will consider to be something we should avoid. In pregnancy, you're starting that whole monal change already, so your body's doing remarkable things. And for some women I've even had that, they've said they are starting to feel nauseous already at
that four to five week mark. It's not even though the BEATA hat CG hormones are not really high, which is obviously what triggers a lot of the nausea, it's not impossible. So if you're already feeling yucky, the last thing you want to go is, you know's neck a bottle of wine. So I mean, hopefully it's a good thing. You know, it is something we're trying to continue to
have the discussion around. Lots of people, by the way, don't know they're pregnant yet though, and are drinking and doing fun things in life, because you know, we need to live. I think it's so it's also important there to highlight that if you don't know you're pregnant yet, that we don't beat yourself up for the things that
did happen prior to that. Yes, I think that's more common than not, you know, because I think there are a large number of pregnancies that are unplanned and people don't find out sometimes, so there are nine or ten weeks pregnant, so they've made lots of decisions during that time that weren't you know, pregnancy related. You know. Ideally, I think let's be medical here for a seconds. I put my little doctors had on you have had prenatal
discussions with your with your GP. Ideally have had some serology, which is blood tests looking at you know, in antiinatal markers, infection markers, even things like your fole eight level. Your blood group's really important in pregnancy to know whether your H negative, which do you have a negative or a positive blood group?
Is that where they test whether my blood is attacking the baby. Yes, okay, And it's kind of a little.
Important because it's not at this four weeks pregnant. It doesn't matter because we wouldn't do anything. So if you came in it matters, if you come in bleeding, it matters if you've had a car accident or something like that, because it's basically where your baby makes a different blood group to you, and your own body will make antibodies against your baby's blood group. Now it doesn't matter in
this pregnancy at all. It's actually about subsequent pregnancy. So you don't want your body to make those antibodies against
the positive blood group because you're negative. So what that means though, is if you find out you are what we call RH negative, if you have an inciting event like a miscarriage or an accident where there could be some fetal cells that crossover, we need to give you an anti d So it's basically a medication that stops that from happening, and we consider that after sort of twelve weeks. So you just basically talk to your doctor
about it and now make a plan. But it's important to know it so you can at least raise the question, Hey, I'm RGE negative. Do I need to do anything different from an rh positive mum?
Which leads me into the important things that we should be doing at this stage. You mentioned fall a. A lot of people say folic acid and you should be on it if you're trying to conceive.
Ideally, what does that? But what are you.
Actually trying to do and is it bad if you haven't been taking again.
A lot of us don't know we're pregnant, but ideally you start taking a women's multivib for about three months before pregnancy starts, or as soon as you find out you are pregnant, because so follo is actually to do with neural tube defects, So it's the way your baby's brain and spinal cord form prevents things like spiner befitter from occurring. So you know, many many years ago, so our mums and grandma's had much higher rates of that before they found out that follit can make a difference.
So for most of it, you know, between four hundred and eight hundred milligrams is enough, but you need to triple check if you're at higher risks. So people with a high BMI, people who have are on antiepolectic medication, people have had previous miscarriages or spina bifitter may need a higher dose. So I think it's a conversation to have. But the best thing you can do is just get started as soon as you find out, so you'll plan.
It's never too late, never too absolutely no correct, never too late.
And what are some like nice to do things, things to think about, maybe not necessarily about our body, but things to start having a think about in the future.
Yeah.
Great, A look, it's very early, but I would actually say start thinking about what model of care you want to do, because you have obstetric which is what I'm training to be, so coming with the doctor's program. You have what I love and I went with my last pregnancy, which was actually my second last pregnancy MGP. So whether you want to be MIDWI Free Group Practice low risk pregnancies lovely holistic care, and I know my midwives out
there will love me for saying this day. I'm much better at counseling around birth and making it normal, you know, making normalizing what birth and pregnancy is. But you do an unfortunately to be relatively low risk in that program, and they fill up so fast. So they're the ones that you get a positive pregnancy test and you're like contact your local hospital and say I'd love to go on the MIDWI Free Group Practice program and getting early.
So that's why it's important now, even this early in gestation, to have a think about what you want to do.
Okay, we're gonna need a lot of help along this pregnancy. It's only week four, so what can we put in our toolkit for this week?
Did you pick an app? Because I think having an app, particularly for first time mums, can be really helpful to sort of track babies development and some of the things you might be experiencing.
Have you, Oh, yes, I have the flow out. Yes I like it, but I was using it to track my period, so I had it already. And then once you log that you're pregnant, it's which is into this whole new mode.
Ye.
What I like about this is it gives you, like the stats, Yes, what week you are, here's the size of your baby, Here's what's happening to them, and then here's what's happening to your body. So you're kind of covering these sort of major things which I like.
Yeah, And I mean you can also use it in pregnancy too, and as you're trying to get pregnant. What I liked about flow Pregnancy Plus is another really good one. I have both. I have to say I liked both of the checks between them to see if there was differences. And Baby Centers another good one as well.
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.
You can go back and listen to everything else Hello bumb related in this podcast.
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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 Huggy's Bye Bye