Week 9 of Pregnancy | How Big is Your Baby at 9 Weeks?

Pregnancy is a time of huge change for you, your body and your life. Our guide will help you through this amazing time, letting you know what to expect at each stage and, most excitingly, what your baby is up to each week.

At nine weeks of pregnancy, your baby is the size of a cherry!

Which is a big leap from their blueberry-sized stature of seven weeks! At nine weeks, your baby is around 25mm (1in) in length from crown to rump and weighs 2g (0.07oz).

Your baby is developing fingers and toes!

Your baby’s body is straightening out further and their tail is disappearing (1), while their hands and feet are developing little fingers and toes.

If you were to look at your baby in profile you’d be able to see their ear lobes and the tip of their nose this week (2), too, as well as see their eyelids growing to cover more of their eyes.

There’s a few “bones” in early development

Your baby’s sternum and ribcage are starting to form (3) around now, although they’re only made of soft cartilage at this stage. Inside this early ribcage, the heart is developing further, as well as your baby’s arterial system. Other important internal organs such as the liver, pancreas and bile ducts are also taking shape.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle!

You can’t feel anything just yet, but an ultrasound scan will reveal how your tiny baby is wiggling around and bending lots (4) this week. These movements are reflexive and spasmodic for now, with more deliberate movements coming much later in pregnancy.

How you’re feeling at nine weeks pregnant

Nine weeks of pregnancy may be when your nausea and vomiting peak (5), although you might carry on feeling it for a while yet. You’ll still be weeing more frequently and you might be noticing itchy breasts and even a bit of heartburn.

You might be feeling a bit more emotional

Your emotions might be a bit up and down around now. If you had your first midwife visit last week, your pregnancy probably feels a bit more real and combined with the ongoing fatigue, nausea and plain old nerves, week nine can be a bit of a rollercoaster.

Any mood swings you’re having are also partly down to swings in the pregnancy hormones, oestrogen and progesterone (6), which can have a knock-on effect upon your mood-regulating neurotransmitters. Don’t worry, just roll with it and look forward to your second trimester, which is usually a lot easier!

Dealing with heartburn

You might associate heartburn with later pregnancy, but this common symptom can start much earlier thanks to – you guessed it – hormones! Progesterone relaxes the smooth muscles in your body and this includes the muscles in your lower esophageal sphincter.

This muscle is there to keep food and stomach acid where it belongs (in your stomach) but when it relaxes, food and acid can move back up into your oesophagus, causing heartburn (7).

Eating little and often can help to reduce heartburn, as there’s less in your stomach at any one time to leak upwards. Staying upright for an hour or so after eating can also help to prevent heartburn, but if you’re really suffering, your GP can prescribe safe antacids to help.

Itchy and painful breasts

Your breasts are getting ready to feed your baby and so they’re growing rapidly (8). This in itself can cause a lot of tingling and itching sensations, but the skin on your breasts might also feel itchy as it stretches. A soothing body lotion can help to relieve these feelings, and a supportive bra can help with breast tenderness.

Staying healthy at nine weeks pregnant

You’re almost a quarter of the way through your pregnancy, which can come as a bit of a shock as you might only just be getting used to the idea!

Take time to look after your emotions, because they are real and they do matter, even if you do feel a bit silly when you cry at an advert. Pregnancy and parenthood are huge transitions in life and it’s not just about the physical symptoms.

Talking to friends and family during your pregnancy is important, both in terms of creating a support network and gathering advice and anecdotes.

Spend some quality time with your partner, as well as with family and friends because the other three quarters of your pregnancy will pass quickly and you won’t have as much free time.

Carry on with your healthy diet (9) and your prenatal supplements (10), as well as your 1.5 litres of water a day so that you’re well fed and hydrated.

Things to think about at nine weeks pregnant

While some people prefer to wait until the 12-week scan (11) to start sharing the news of their pregnancy, there’s no hard and fast rule and you might be thinking about telling people now. If you’re looking for fun ways to announce your pregnancy, we can help you!

Carry on writing in your pregnancy diary so that you can record not just thoughts, milestones and plans but so you can remember any questions or worries you might have for your midwife.

When you’re not journaling, you should be following your healthy diet, getting a bit of exercise and looking at stretchy clothes. The thing about pregnancy is that you can wake up one morning and find nothing fits comfortably anymore, so have a few items in your wardrobe ready to go before you need them!