20 weeks pregnant

You're half way through this pregnancy journey! Your bump will be super cute, and you're probably feeling more positive about your baby’s long term prospects. As a result, you will likely be in full swing planning baby names, nursery ideas, and thinking about labour and birth.

Planning for parenting

This is a good time to talk to your partner about your life as parents. What vision you have for your role as a parent and as a family? How you will both cope and react to each other in the first few weeks when baby arrives? Sleep deprivation can affect aspect of your life, and your precious little newborn will have no concept of time. They are learning how to be a baby, just like you’re learning how to be a parent. They don’t know when it’s appropriate to go to sleep or be awake, or when breakfast lunch or dinner is. They run on their own clock and will let you know when they are ready - sometimes at ungodly hours.

We have some great tips on sleep and sleep training written by experts. But it's always good to talk about it with your partner so you're both aware that there needs to be some 'slack' given to each other when you've only had a few hours sleep each night for a week. This is important in keeping your relationship strong as well which is important for your little one too.

Pregnancy symptoms at 20 weeks

You’ll hopefully be feeling baby’s movements now, or will do very soon. If the baby is facing inwards, you might not feel much yet, or if you’re carrying extra weight. The timing of when you feel baby’s kicks, and what you feel, is different for every woman and every pregnancy. Soon, you might start to feel hiccups too—rhythmic knocks that can feel like they are in odd places internally.

20 week scan for pregnancy

If you have a scan around now, this is the ‘abnormality’ or ‘anatomy’ scan. It tells your healthcare provider everything they need to know about your baby’s developing organs and body. All baby measurements are taken. Of particular interest to them is the fundal height, the distance from your public bone to the top of the uterus. This helps to give information about baby growth. At 20 weeks pregnant, fundal height is about 18 to 22cm.

Can you tell baby sex at 20 weeks?

This anatomy 20 week scan is also when it’s likely you can find out the gender. Fingers crossed your wee one behaves and flashes the appropriate bits at the radiographer!

Pregnancy symptoms at 20 weeks

Constipation is really common during pregnancy, due to slowed digestion and your baby making less room for your intestines. Make sure you drink enough water, eat high fibre foods, and talk to your healthcare provider if it is becoming problematic.

Stuffy nose and nosebleeds are another common pregnancy symptom at 20 weeks. Extra hormones plus the extra blood volume mean mucus membranes swell and dry up. Stay hydrated, and a humidifier may help alleviate the symptoms.

Your hair and nail growth is probably amazing—finally, a positive pregnancy symptom! It’s that extra blood flow creating better circulation and more nutrients throughout your body. However, all that extra lush hair falls out when the baby is born—all that suppressed hair loss from the last nine months is normalised.

Your baby at 20 weeks pregnant

Twenty weeks into your pregnancy, your baby has grown significantly from that very first dividing cell. Your baby now weighs around 260 grams and is about 14 to 16 centimetres long from the top of the head to the rump. Your baby is about 25.4cm long from the top of it’s head to the bottom of it’s feet, similar in length to a king-sized block of chocolate! (Although your baby isn’t rectangular...)

The baby is taking up more room in the uterus, and the continuing expansion of your baby means contraction of the space for the mum’s bladder, lungs, stomach, and kidneys. Despite the extra size, there’s still plenty of room in there for acrobatics and gymnastics practice—as you might be able to tell.

Under the vernix caseosa (a layer of waxy, protective coating on your baby), the skin is thickening and developing layers that it needs to be safe in the outside world. The subcutaneous, dermis, and epidermis layers are all developing. Nails and hair continue to grow this week.

Your baby's senses (taste, smell, sight, hearing and touch) are becoming more sensitive.

If you are having a female she will already have a total of 6 million eggs in her ovaries which she will release for the rest of her fertile life, although this number will get down to one or two million by the time your due date arrives. If you’re having a boy, his testicles are still growing in the abdomen but will descend over the next few weeks.

20 weeks pregnant is how many months?

You’re in the fifth month of pregnancy, and halfway to full term.

What should you eat at 20 weeks pregnant?

Your actual calorific needs aren’t that much more than normal, but your usual eating habits don’t apply during pregnancy. Your slower digestion means constipation, indigestion, heart burn, and some women are still experiencing morning sickness. Some studies have shown women carrying baby boys are hungrier than women pregnant with girls, so if you’re extra hungry, it could be that.

Try to have smaller meals, more often. Snacks are encouraged. Just keep it healthy, with loads of fresh fruit, vege, and plenty of plain water.