Week 24: Let It Go

Welcome to week 24! As you research everything related to pregnancy, motherhood, and parenting, it can be easy to get overwhelmed. People are more aware of your pregnancy at this point and will often share their opinions. This is meant to be helpful but can quickly become overwhelming as you are inundated with opinions and information. You may even fear the judgment and criticism of others when it comes to the decisions you make about your healthcare, parenting or motherhood. Just remember that you don’t need to know everything. Limit the amount of opinion-based resources you are listening to. Make sure that you are relying on trustworthy information to inform your decisions. Talk to your healthcare provider if you need help finding reliable resources regarding pregnancy, postpartum, and newborn care. It’s also okay to learn as you go and not have everything perfectly in place before your baby arrives.

At 24 weeks, your baby is busy working on lung development and is preparing to breathe. Much hard work and development is involved leading up to the miraculous moment when your baby takes his first breath of oxygen. Preparing to breathe involves practising inhaling and exhaling. At this point, your baby’s lungs are filled with fluid, so the actual work of breathing is still being done by the placenta. However, strengthening the muscles required to breathe is essential. You may even start to feel your baby hiccup as these muscles mature and learn to become more coordinated.