Top 10 foetus facts

A couple of the things happening in your womb might surprise you, writes Shanda Luyt

1 YOUR FOETUS HAS TEETH!

Although most babies are born completely toothless, your little one’s pearly whites already start developing from nine to 14 weeks. It’s the beginning of her milk teeth, which will probably only start appearing from four to six months after birth.

In exceptional cases (estimated at about one out of every 2 000 babies), a baby surprises her parents when she arrives with a tooth already visible. Sometimes it’s a normal milk tooth and other times an extra tooth that later falls out.

2 BABY IS BLIND AS A BAT FOR THREE MONTHS

Your little one’s eyes already start developing from week six or seven of your pregnancy and are wide open at first. By 11 to 14 weeks development has come far enough for her to be able to close her eyelids, and they stay shut for now. At 26 weeks, all parts of the eye are already well developed. Somewhere between weeks 27 and 30 she starts opening her eyes and blinking her eyelids. By week 33, your baby can distinguish between light and dark and observe dim shapes. By nine months your little one’s eyes are open, but they have a dull colour that’s tough to call.

3 YOUR LITTLE MONKEY IS COVERED IN HAIR

They say babies are actually little monkeys that have lost their fur – and it’s not that far off the truth really. The hair follicles in the skin start developing by week nine. By week 22, the whole body of the foetus is covered in fine fuzz called lanugo, which helps, among other things, to cover the skin’s greasy coat and protect the skin in this way. By the seventh month, the fuzz becomes less again, and by week 37 it completely disappears. Your baby might still have a couple of hairs on her upper arms and shoulders at birth.

4 HER HEAD SIZE EQUALS HER BODY SIZE AT SOME POINT

By the end of the second month, your foetus’ head is just as big as the rest of her body. This is because the brain is formed incredibly quickly. By the third month, the head is still quite large in comparison with the rest of the body, but it grows more steadily now. From here on, your little human starts looking more and more like a baby.

Only by the seventh month does baby’s body start growing faster than her head, and by month nine, she finally looks “normal”, and her head makes up about a quarter of her whole body size.

5 THE GENITALS ARE FULLY FORMED EARLY ON

Incredibly, by 23 weeks of pregnancy, a baby girl already has a fully developed uterus and ovaries – with a lifetime’s worth of eggs.

Up to nine weeks, the genitals of both sexes look identical, and then things start developing differently.

By about 20 weeks of pregnancy the external genitals are fully formed. If your baby lies in such a way that you can see,

you might be able to detect the sex as early as 16 to 20 weeks with a sonar. Boys’ testes drop by the seventh month from the abdominal cavity in the scrotum.

6 YOUR BABY ‘BREATHES’ IN AMNIOTIC FLUID

Your baby gets the oxygen she needs for survival through the placenta directly into her bloodstream without the lungs being involved, but that doesn’t mean her lungs aren’t being used in utero.

By 26 weeks, your baby’s lungs start producing the agent that allows the tiny airbags (alveoli) in the lungs to inflate and not stick together when they deflate again. And by 27 weeks your little one will start “breathing” in and out through her lungs, which are filled with fluid at this stage, through rhythmical contractions of the diaphragm and other muscles.

This “breathing” is sporadic – she “breathes” like this 30 percent of the time during the last 10 weeks of pregnancy. In this way, she’s already developing the muscles she needs at a later stage for that all-important first breath. It’s critically important for normal lung development.

7 YOUR FOETUS ALREADY HAS A FINGERPRINT

Your baby already develops her own unique fingerprint during the third month of pregnancy, at six to 13 weeks – and she’ll carry it with her for the rest of her life.

By the 17th week, the fingerprints are fully formed. By two months, her hand and footprints have also permanently developed on the skin. Researchers are still not quite sure how these unique patterns are initially shaped and retained.

8 YOUR BABY CAN ALREADY FEEL PAIN AND LOVE

The foetus is already sensitive to touch at about eight weeks – first on the cheeks, later on the genitals, palms of the hands and soles of the feet.

By 17 weeks, the belly and bottom are also sensitive to touch.

A brain scan of the foetus at 26 weeks will show that your baby also reacts to touch from outside, such as when you gently press against the uterus.

By 32 weeks almost the entire body is sensitive for temperature fluctuations, pressure, and – yes – pain.

9 YOUR FOETUS CAN SMELL – AND TASTE – WITH YOU

By about 13 to 15 weeks, the taste buds on your foetus’ tongue will resemble those of an adult. The nose of the foetus develops at 11 and 15 weeks, and as early as by the 28th week of pregnancy your baby will start smelling – the same things Mom smells. If you eat curry, your baby will smell this in the amniotic fluid. If your amniotic fluid tastes sweet, she’ll swallow it more often. Your foetus can smell the same things as you.

10 YOUR FOETUS CAN REMEMBER

A study has shown that your little human already has a short-term memory at 30 weeks.

Researchers have found that if the foetus is repeatedly exposed to a specific stimulant, after a while it does not react to it any longer. In other words, it remembers that it has encountered it before and that it is “safe”. According to the researchers, a foetus can remember about 10 minutes long at 30 weeks, while 34-week-old foetuses can store information and recall it four weeks later.