What are the stages of pregnancy?

The first trimester of pregnancy

Once the test is done and you tell your partner, you feel the characteristic symptoms: nausea, sore breasts... These are the pregnancy hormones that are starting to take hold. Your vaginal secretions are probably more important: they help protect your vagina from infections. You may also experience some minor bleeding as the uterine lining prepares its cozy little nest to welcome your baby. As for appointments, you will have your first dating ultrasound to determine the expected date of delivery, and you will have a few blood tests, notably for toxoplasmosis.

The 2nd trimester

Your belly is getting rounder. This is the trimester when you are often the most fulfilled! You feel your baby's movements, but you are still free to move around. You should have more energy, so take advantage of this time to travel and prepare the baby's room. The morphological ultrasound will allow you to know the sex of your child, if you wish to know it! Beware of stretch marks, which may already be showing. The skin of your belly is getting tighter, and maybe itchy: you need to moisturize and spread some cream! You may even start to feel false contractions: this is the uterus training.

The 3rd trimester

The one where you sleep the least! With your due date getting closer and your baby moving around more and more, and not just in the middle of the day, you might have some insomnia. Your pretty, bouncy belly is probably making it hard to find the right sleeping position. Your skin and back may be tugging. It's also the beginning of maternity leave. Take advantage of it to get some rest, you won't have as many hours of sleep afterwards! The mucous plug, which until now sealed the entrance of the cervix, may have appeared, in one or more times, or maybe not at all! The signs of labor are imminent: repeated contractions every 10 minutes or the loss of water signal the beginning of labor. It's time to go to the maternity ward!

Postpartum

You have given birth and your body is slowly recovering from this effort. Everything may not have gone as planned, and with the drop in hormones, you may experience a few crying spells and a temporary state of depression. This is normal! Your post-partum bleeding will be heavy for a few weeks, until everything returns to normal and your return from childbirth (your first period) makes its appearance: this will be the resumption of your usual cycle.

Elia will accompany you throughout your pregnancy and into the postpartum period. Feel free to take a look at our menstrual briefs and to learn more about the solutions we offer to young and future mothers.

And if you want to know more about the stages of postpartum and the return of childbirth, take a look at our dedicated blog post.