With baby's head pressing squarely on your bladder, you're probably clocking some quality time in the bathroom. On a similar note, if you're finding it tough to poop, load up on the fiber. Whole grains, veggies, and dried fruits (but not all at once!) should loosen things up.
Your care provider may begin regular checks of your cervix some time in the next few weeks for signs of effacement and dilation and to see what position your baby is in. Your baby cannot pass through a normally closed cervix. The process of labor is the stretching, thinning (effacement) and opening (dilation) of your cervix to allow the baby to pass through. Your cervix is fully dilated when the opening measures 10 centimeters.
From now on, baby's growth is mostly in the plumping up department -- though he won't get much longer, he'll put on a pound or more of baby fat before birth. (He's about 15 percent right now and will be about 30 percent by full-term.) His hearing is totally developed (tip: baby responds best to higher pitches), and if he really is a "he," his testes have probably completed their descent.
The average sized baby is around five and a half pounds now! The fat accumulations plump up the arms and legs this week. The baby has gotten big enough to take up most of the uterus, and there's less room to move around.
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