Week 24 of Pregnancy

At 24 weeks your baby is called "viable" which means that if born now would have a reasonable chance of survival outside your womb in an intensive care unit.

Your baby

Your baby weighs approximately 600g and measures around 30cm from head to heel.

If your baby was to be born this week it would have an approximate survival rate of 44% in an intensive care unit. Most babies born before this time cannot live because their lungs and other vital organs are not developed enough. The care that can now be given in neonatal units means that more and more babies born early do survive.

Your baby will now be able to kick and may well have a sleep and wake cycle.

Your baby is beginning to deposit brown fat on his or her body. The purpose of the brown fat is to retain body heat. Newborns are bad at regulating body temperature at first.


Mother

As your uterus expands this may start to put pressure on your digestive organs, contributing to heartburn. The breathlessness that you may be experiencing will be the growing uterus pushing against the diaphragm which in turn crowds the lungs.


Health

Remember to continue to eat a healthy diet. Calcium and Vitamin D are very important. Calcium helps your baby to grow strong bones and teeth, healthy nerves, heart, and muscles. Vitamin D is essential to help your body absorb the calcium.

Calcium can be found in dairy products, tinned fish, spinach, green beans, pulses, sesame seeds and almonds. Vitamin D can be found in oily fish, milk and eggs.

The later months are when you want to keep an eye out for any complications that should arise such as pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes, so it is important to keep and attend all antenatal appointments. You may feel 100 per cent, but some worries are only picked up by routine blood pressure and urine checks.


My Experience at 24 weeks

Week 24 was much the same for me as week 23 although knowing that my baby was now classed as viable gave me a sense of relief that my baby had a chance of survival if it was born now. I also found this exciting knowing there was a possibility of my little one surviving if it was to be born now and that each week that would go by from now on this survival rate would increase.

25 Weeks
23 Weeks
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