Your baby this week
Your baby is about the size of a peach — roughly eight and a half to nine centimeters, about three and a half inches from head to bottom, and weighing around forty-three grams. The body is now growing faster than the head: the neck has lengthened, lifting the head into a more upright, baby-like posture, and the arms have reached close to their final proportions.
The star development is the face — the facial muscles are getting their first workouts, practicing frowning, squinting and grimacing. That's pure muscle rehearsal, not feelings. The roof of the mouth has finished forming, your baby swallows amniotic fluid regularly and makes small practice breathing movements, the liver is producing bile, and the spleen is joining in blood-cell production alongside the kidneys.
Fine, soft hair called lanugo is beginning to sprout across the body. And on the question relatives are already asking: your baby's sex organs have developed, and on a very clear ultrasound an experienced eye can sometimes make a good guess around now — but "sometimes" and "guess" are the important words. The anatomy scan at around twenty weeks remains the far more reliable moment.
Your body & symptoms: appetite returns
Week fourteen is when many women turn the corner into genuinely feeling good. The placenta is fully running the hormone show, energy is up, and the famous appetite often returns with enthusiasm. Aim for nourishing and regular rather than perfect — and remember you're still not literally eating for two: in the second trimester, most guidelines suggest only a few hundred extra calories a day, like a good snack, not a second dinner.
Your uterus is rising well into your abdomen, and a genuine little bump is appearing for many women, particularly by evening. You may notice your hair behaving beautifully — pregnancy hormones slow normal shedding, so it often feels thicker (what isn't shed now tends to shed after birth instead, which is also normal). A little itchiness as skin stretches and possibly the first faint stretch marks may start around now — genetics plays the biggest role in stretch marks, and moisturizer is for comfort, not destiny. One quieter symptom that surprises people: a stuffy nose can begin around now, as increased blood flow swells the membranes.
Those sharp little twinges: round ligament pain
Let's name that twinge, because it startles almost everyone the first time. Two ligaments — strong, cord-like bands — run from the top of your uterus down toward the groin, holding it in place like guy-ropes on a tent. As your uterus grows, those ropes stretch, and when you move suddenly — standing up quickly, coughing, sneezing, laughing hard, rolling over in bed — a ligament can spasm, producing a brief, sharp or pulling ache low in your belly, often on the right side, because that ligament is typically the longer one.
The reassuring profile: it lasts seconds, or a few minutes at most; it's clearly triggered by a movement; and it eases when you rest, change position, or draw your knees up slightly. Warmth helps many women. Prevention is mostly about pace: move a little more slowly than your pre-pregnancy self, rise in stages, and flex your hips slightly before you cough or sneeze.