The infant during week 17 is now quite mobile, joyfully moving its extremities here and there and almost everywhere. This unborn continues to do so as the mother continues her pregnancy week by week. The cartilages make up the skeleton in mother’s infant’s body is beginning to transform into bones. At 17th week of pregnancy time, the infant should be hearing all the sounds happening around. The infant starts putting on some layers of fatty tissues in the weeks to come, although at this juncture in time the infant is made up of primarily water.
The mother might be feeling her infant moving intermittently after 17th week of pregnancy; although as the pregnancy progresses she likely starts feeling the infant moving more and more. There are plenty of natural health healers that believe in the touch therapy - power of touch. Though the little one is yet very tiny, mother’s touch might do much to help it feeling safe and warm in the uterus. If the mother has not started already, she may consider rubbing her pooch in gentle circulating movements. This not only helps comforting the little one, but also helps initiating the bonding process with the mother and her newborn infant throughout the gestational period and also after that.
Other expecting mothers discover comfort while playing music to their unborn baby. There are evidences suggest that the infant responds to music even while enjoying warmth of the mother’s uterus. Therefore, there is no harm to play some calming and engaging music to the unborn even while they are inside the uterus.
At pregnancy week 17 the womb starts changing shape as the gestational period progresses, to resemble a larger egg rather than just round ball and it gradually grows to inhabit most of the pelvic region including abdomen. While this situation makes mother’s organs including the intestines getting pushed towards the sides. By this spot in time the mother will probably be showing somewhat, though some expecting mothers are still be able to conceal the pregnancy for many more weeks those are coming.
By pregnancy week 17, the uterus must now be about 1.5 to 2 inches under the umbilicus, so the mother should be showing a bit in her lower abdomen. The mother is probably steady gaining some weight by 17th week of pregnancy. Most of the expecting mothers welcome this feeling of the infant moving by this week in pregnancy, but movements are still cleanly erratic and will not look regular for another more weeks.
The mother might be having more vaginal discharges now. Many of the expecting mothers have more vaginal discharge in the pregnancy. These increased vaginal discharges are referred to as leucorrhoea, which is odorless and a milky or clear colored fluid, quite normal during pregnancy in little quantity.
The mother actually notices even more vaginal discharges during the latter half of the gestational period. Sometimes it is hard to discern whether the mother is leaking discharge or the amniotic fluid. Typical amniotic fluid is clearer and abundant and if she is not certain if her discharge is normal, or if it is containing some blood at all she must contact the health care provider straightaway, as this could be a sign of pre-term labor or threatened abortion.
