35th Week Growth...

How your baby's growing: Your baby's getting big. He weighs a tad over 5 pounds and is just over 18 inches long. Because it's so snug in your womb, he isn't likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the number of times he kicks should remain about the same. His kidneys are fully developed now, and his liver can process some waste products. Most of his basic physical development is now complete — he'll spend the next few weeks putting on weight.
Most 35-week babies weigh 5 pounds or more and rarely experience major complications if born before they officially come to term. You may feel a tingling or numbness in your pelvic region as the extra weight presses on your nerves, as well as increased movement in your upper rib cage where her feet have come to rest in preparation for the head-down journey into the world. Three to four percent of full-term babies never adopt this position, but remain breech (with their heads facing up). If your baby is part of this stubborn minority, you may be at greater risk for a cesarean section. To prevent this, your caregiver may attempt to turn her from the outside using a process called "external version." She'll also do a sonogram to determine the baby's exact position before deciding whether to attempt a vaginal birth.
Other developments are also taking place this week:
*The central nervous system will continue to mature.
*The lungs will most likely be fully developed by Week 35.
*Baby is beginning to develop daily activity cycles. You may notice that Baby is often more active at night when you're trying to rest!
*Even thought they won't be considered “full-term” until the end of the 40th week, Baby's respiratory and digestive systems are nearly mature.
*Baby's immune system is starting to develop.
*The umbilical cord is now about 20 inches long and one to two centimeters in diameter; at birth, it will be about two feet long and a half-inch thick.


How your life's changing:
Your uterus — now up under your ribs — has expanded to about 15 times its original volume, and you may feel like you've run out of room! If you could peek inside your uterus, you'd see that there's much less amniotic fluid and much more baby in there now. Your ballooning uterus is crowding your internal organs too, which is why you probably have to urinate more often and have heartburn and other digestive problems. If you don't have these problems, you're one of the lucky few.
Your doctor or midwife will probably want to start seeing you every week until you deliver. She may ask you to count fetal movements, to track your baby's activity level. Between now and 37 weeks, she'll also do a culture to check for bacteria called Group B streptococci (GBS). This is done by swabbing the lower end of your vagina and your rectum — the swab is the size of a regular cotton swab, and it won't hurt at all. Group B streptococcus is usually harmless in adults, but if you have it and pass it on to your baby during labor and birth, it can cause complications (like pneumonia, meningitis, or a blood infection). Because 10 to 30 percent of pregnant women have the bacteria and don't know it, it's important to be screened. (The bacteria come and go on their own — that's why you weren't screened earlier in pregnancy.) If you're a GBS carrier, you'll be given IV antibiotics when you're in labor, which will reduce your baby's risk of infection by 70 percent.
You may experience a feeling of dropping, also called lightening or engagement, as the baby slips lower into your pelvis. Starting now, your doctor may begin regularly checking your cervix, looking for effacement and dilation rates, and to check baby's position. "Effacement" refers to how much your cervix has stretched and thinned, and "dilatation" means how much the cervix is starting to open so that Baby can move through the birth canal. While these changes signal that labor is approaching, they may occur as much as three weeks before the actual event. Similarly, "practice" contractions--known as Braxton Hicks contractions--may send you racing for your overnight bag. Unlike regular contractions, Braxton Hicks contractions occur at irregular intervals and do not increase in severity over time.