Your baby weighs about 1.1kg after seven months: an increase of 10 times in 11 weeks! Her length is 39cm.
Your body
You should have gained between 7.7-10.9kg by now. If you’ve put on much more than that, making a few adjustments to your diet now could make it easier to lose excess weight after the birth. Cutting out empty calories: chocolate, cakes, biscuits anything sweet with little nourishment and substituting fresh fruit and vegetables when you fancy a snack will help a lot. But don’t, whatever you do, stop eating a healthy, balanced diet.
Cramping your style
Suffering from leg cramps? This painful pregnancy glitch is caused by the extra weight you’re carrying, and the pressure of the uterus on the nerves leading to your weary legs. A lack of calcium and too much phosphorus (found in soft drinks, snack foods and processed meat) also contributes to the problem. Reduce your risk of leg cramps by eating more calcium-rich foods, such as milk, cheese, canned salmon, sardines or mackerel (eat the bones too) and broccoli.
Your baby
Your baby weighs about 1.1 kilograms, her crown to rump length is about 25cm and her total length is 39cm.
If your baby were born now, although her lungs are still immature, with the help of a ventilator (a machine that aids breathing) and other technology, she would have a good chance of survival.
Feeling heavier? Your baby now weighs about 1.1 kilograms.
(Credit: Getty Images)Feed me, feed me now!
From now until your baby is born, her nutrient demands surge, so you need to eat around 840 extra kilojoules a day to ensure she gets the nourishment she needs.
Recent research also shows that eating oily fish (such as sardines, mackerel, salmon), which contain omega-3 fatty acids, can boost your growing baby’s brain development and may even influence her future IQ. Getting enough of these fish oils is particularly important now. Try to eat two portions of oily fish a week, but if you’re not keen on the taste, take a fish oil supplement designed for pregnancy instead.
Brain power
There’s a lot of action this week in your baby’s brain, which increases in size and forms grooves and indentations called gyri and sulci on the surface.
