Pregnancy week 31: all five senses reporting for duty

Five of five

This stretch completes the set: sight (light through the wall), hearing (the household's full soundtrack), taste (the fluid changes with your menu), smell (the same chemistry), touch (its own face, the cord, the walls). The baby is running all five senses — the world is being rehearsed from inside.

The brain behind them is in its fastest growth of the whole pregnancy — connections forming in the billions per week. The head-size growth of these weeks is the skull making room for exactly this.

Your part of the week is quieter: managing the squeeze (lungs, stomach and bladder all pay rent to the uterus now), reading the growth scan if it happened, and letting the colostrum questions get answered before the leaking starts the conversation for you.

Your baby this week

The baby is coconut-with-husk sized — about forty-one centimetres, sixteen hundred grams. The gains keep compounding; a quarter of birth weight arrives in the next month.

The irises now dilate and contract with light — a working aperture. Arms and legs are filling into proportion; the fingernails have reached the fingertips.

The baby can turn its head side to side now, and many settle head-down in these weeks. Room is scarce enough that every roll is a production felt across the whole bump.

Changes in your body

The diaphragm is at maximum squeeze — stairs are an event, sentences shorten. The lean-forward trick (hands on knees, or arms on a table) uncrowds a breath when needed.

Colostrum may leak more freely now — yellowish, sticky, completely normal, and exactly what the baby will drink first. Breast pads for the laundry; no expressing 'to practise' unless the doctor has specifically advised it.

The pelvic floor is carrying its heaviest load — a sneeze may leak. Kegels are the gym for it: squeeze as if stopping urine, hold five, release, ten times, thrice daily. They pay off at delivery and for years after.

What to do this week

Growth scan done? Take the report through with the doctor line by line — estimated weight, fluid, placenta grade, Doppler. Not done? It should be on this fortnight's calendar.

Add Kegels to the daily set alongside the count — the two-minute habit with the decade-long dividend.

Interview the paediatrician question now: who checks the baby at birth, and who do you call in week two at 2 a.m.? If the hospital has its own newborn team, get the name; if not, choose one nearby now.

Stock the postpartum shelf while errands are easy: maternity pads (many), comfortable cotton underwear, a peri bottle, the nursing pillow if using one. Future-you, one week post-delivery, will send thanks.

Week 31 at a glance

The week's essentials in one place. Your doctor may adjust these for your situation.

When to see a doctor at once

The standing list — movement slump, bleeding, rhythmic tightening, watery discharge, the triad, fever, urinary burning, calf swelling, night itch: same-day.

Breathlessness gets one calibration: gradually worsening with the bump is the squeeze; sudden breathlessness at rest, or with chest pain or a racing heart, is a different machine entirely — that one is an emergency call, not a symptom diary entry.

This article is general information only and no substitute for personal medical advice. The person who can advise you knowing your health, your medicines and your previous pregnancies is your obstetrician, or the doctor at your nearest health centre.

Work out your due date

Enter the first day of your last period and your cycle length — your estimated due date, this week's count and the anomaly scan window all appear right here.

It is only an estimate — most babies aren't born on the exact date. A first-trimester scan dates a pregnancy more accurately; in the end, your doctor's date is the one that counts.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Does the baby taste what I eat — really? — Really: the amniotic fluid carries flavours from your food, and babies are born already preferring tastes they met inside. The family menu is literally the first food education.

Q: I leak a few drops when I sneeze — is this permanent? — Common now, and mostly temporary — but not to be shrugged at: this is exactly what Kegels exist for, and starting now improves both delivery and recovery. Mention it at the visit; persistent leaking after delivery has good treatment too.

Q: The baby is head-down already — will it stay? — Probably: by this stage most stay put, though flips still happen. The position that counts is the one at thirty-six; until then it's information, not a decision.

Q: Should I be expressing colostrum before birth? — Only on medical advice (it's sometimes suggested with diabetes, for example) — and then with taught technique. Unadvised expressing can trigger tightenings. The leak is not a signal to start; it's just the factory testing its pipes.