Use our pregnancy calendar to see what’s happening in your pregnancy each week.

It’s viability week! Here’s what you can expect from week twenty four of your pregnancy.

Your Baby:

Is around 30cm long which is, ummm, *looks round* as long as a pair of hair straighteners?!

Is officially considered viable

Has hair! Eyelashes, eyebrows and some fuzz on top, hurrah!

You:

Might be starting to struggle with round ligament pain (which seems to cover every ache going) and back pain. Basically, your body is protesting carrying around a sizeable lump attached to the front of you

Can be heard on the inside so now’s the time to play some Mozart to that baby genius of yours

Week Twenty Four

Congratulations! At twenty four weeks your baby is officially classed as ‘viable’. What does that mean? It means that your little one is sufficiently developed to stand a fair chance of survival outside of the womb should anything happen. Some hospitals will step in with care prior to this point, but it’s at 24 weeks that the odds shift to being far more in favour of a good survival outcome.

Why is this? Whilst there are still considerable risks for babies born at twenty four weeks, your child’s lungs are developed enough to be able to cope with breathing air rather than fluid. Should anything happen, you’d still be given steroids to help try and develop them further as well as have a lengthy NICU stay on your hands but there’s lots that can be done. From now on, every day you keep that little one inside you, their survival chances increase hugely so keep doing what you’re doing!

Twenty four weeks for me has always been realisation week. Holy mother of someone, we are going to have a baby. Before this week I tend to float along outside of reality, happily forgetting I’m pregnant and then… BAM! Twenty four weeks marks the start of mild panic and an onslaught of pregnancy symptoms that come from nowhere; heartburn, colds, a bump explosion… I go from barely preggo to adopting a waddle overnight.

This time round, the breathlessness and dizziness hit overnight. A quick check at the doctors led to a trip to hospital for checks on potential blood clots; injections, scans, nudity, you name it, I probably had it. One fun 24 hours of thinking I was about to die/have to live in hospital forever later, I was diagnosed with pleurisy (a fancy chest infection). Moral of that story? Get checked out and don’t Google things at 3am.

Other fun things this week: a return of the vommy urge. I’m not sure if it’s the coughing or the fact my organs are squishing further up daily but the vomit urge has returned with a vengance. So far, no sick, but it’s only a matter of time.

Missed a week? Catch up on week twenty three

Fancy sneaking ahead? Here’s week twenty five