You have decided to become a mother and you are preparing yourself for a long journey of 9 months. It is good to know that when the sperm is closed, you are not aware of it until the next month’s period occurs and you hear the good news of your pregnancy with a pregnancy test. When you find out you are pregnant, you are basically in the 4th or 5th week of pregnancy, but it is better to have information about this 9-month journey from the beginning. Do not worry! We are with you until the end of the journey and accompany you. The main thing you should keep in mind is to take care of yourself and avoid doing activities that may endanger the fetus if you are pregnant.
?Am I pregnant or not
Basically you are not pregnant yet. To calculate pregnancy, experts usually consider the first day of the last menstrual period. For this reason, pregnancy is between 40 and 42 weeks. Your due date is calculated from the first day of your last menstrual period. Fertilization occurs during ovulation for a woman who has a normal 28-day menstrual cycle in the second week. Over the course of 40 weeks, your fetus will grow from a tiny seed to the size of a watermelon.
The state of the fetus in the first week of pregnancy
Fetus? Which embryo? This concept is hard to wrap your head around, even if you’re technically in your first week of pregnancy, you don’t expect to have a fetus inside your womb. No sex has even happened yet because you’re basically on your period. Only after the first week of the pregnancy process, the egg is supposed to be released from the ovary and move towards the uterus through tubes called fallopian tubes, where it is fertilized by sperm inside the fallopian tube and forms an egg cell.
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Mother’s condition in the first week of pregnancy
During the first week of pregnancy after menstruation, the uterine wall thickens and uterine secretions increase. These secretions are a sign of the presence of estrogen hormone in the body, which normally acts as a protective barrier, but during fertility, these secretions help the sperm to move more easily in the uterine canal and reach the egg. Sperm is needed to form an egg cell. Normally at the time of conception, millions of sperm are transferred to the vagina, only a few hundred of which make it to the fallopian tube, and this is where the race begins and the sperm swim towards the mature egg. Sperm can live in a woman’s body for up to 72 hours. In different sources, they may have announced that sperm can survive for 4 to 6 days, but being alive is not proof of fertility, and if you decide to get pregnant, you should know that sperm can survive for only 72 hours. On the other hand, once an egg is released from the ovary, it must be fertilized within 12 to 24 hours or it will be lost.
But how does the sperm attach to the egg? Since the egg has a hard protective shell, the end of the structure of each sperm is sticky and sticks to the egg shell and by penetrating it, an egg cell is formed. Conception usually occurs between days 14 and 17 of a 28-day menstrual cycle. Among the signs of the body at the time of ovulation is a slight pain in the lower abdomen and of course an increase in body temperature. During ovulation, the body temperature increases by half a degree.
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Important care of the first week of pregnancy
If you have not yet started taking folic acid, until your pregnancy test is positive, and especially on the days you have menstrual bleeding, take 400 micrograms daily and then 600 micrograms daily, depending on the test result and the amount needed. This need is determined by the doctor, so it is better to consult with the doctor about the amount of folic acid needed months before deciding to get pregnant.
Ovulation is affected by stress, illness, travel, and obvious changes in weight, exercise, and sleep patterns, so try to minimize changes and stress during this time.
It is recommended to start taking the required vitamins and avoid the following substances:
- caffeine
- Artificial sweeteners
- alcohol
- nicotine
- If you are taking a certain medication, check with your doctor to see if it is safe during pregnancy.
- The most important thing you can do right now if you know you’re pregnant is to avoid strenuous activities that could put you in harm’s way, as you may find out two weeks later.
- Toxic substances in the environment and the body are harmful during pregnancy. For this reason, you should remove any environmental chemicals from your life. Poisons such as paint sprays and cigarettes are the first things you should avoid.
?What to eat in the first week of pregnancy
Right now, you want to make pregnancy easier for you and make you feel better in the coming months. Therefore, you should have a balanced diet with daily multivitamins and prenatal vitamins before pregnancy.
- Minerals and folic acid are essential in this era. You know that folic acid is found naturally in lentils, beans and whole grains and their consumption prevents birth defects during pregnancy.
- Consider healthy eating habits in your diet as well as your physical activities.
- If you are taking medicine, you must consult your doctor about the decision to get pregnant and how to use it.
- Avoid smoking and minimize your daily caffeine intake.
- Be sure to include 5 folate, calcium, iron, zinc and fiber foods in your diet plan.
- Eat a rainbow of foods. This means that you should follow the variety in the diet. Of course, if in the first weeks of pregnancy, you don’t have to worry if your stomach cramps prevent you from eating a variety of foods, because your appetite will return very soon and you can eat any healthy food.
- To avoid dehydration, try to drink at least 8 glasses of water or other liquids a day.
Important signs of ovulation in the first week of pregnancy
Changes in body temperature: The first important sign is that your basal body temperature decreases during ovulation and then increases by half a degree immediately after ovulation. So get a special thermometer and start checking. Within a few months you can find a pattern to predict the moment of ovulation.
Increased cervical secretions: During these months when you are trying to get pregnant, you will see that the consistency of the mucus changes week by week. Currently, the secretions are thick, viscous and creamy, but as the day of intercourse approaches, its volume increases and finally it looks like a cloud.
List of important tasks in the first week
You who know that you are planning to get pregnant, it is better to do some things in the list of things to do from the time you start menstruation:
- If you haven’t started taking vitamins yet, it’s time to do so.
- Check and write down the date of your last period or two.
- Be sure to prepare the medical history of yourself, your spouse, and family diseases and chromosomal disorders to share with your doctor