When you are 5 weeks pregnant (five weeks from the beginning of your last menstrual bleeding) your baby is entering its third week of development. Congratulations! Your missed period this week may be the first sign that you're pregnant.
At 3 weeks pregnant, you've officially conceived and are in month 1 of your pregnancy — though it will be a few weeks until you can confirm the news with a pregnancy test.
Pregnancy Week 5. In week 5 of pregnancy, your baby is actually 3 weeks old and has finally "moved into" your uterus. Read on to discover when it is worth taking a pregnancy test, why your little one now looks like a little UFO, and other things that still need to happen at the start of the first trimester.
By week 5, your baby has burrowed into the wall of your uterus. It is now called an embryo and measures about 2mm from end to end. The foundations for all of the major organs are in place. The baby is inside an amniotic sac, a bag of fluid that protects it. The cells in the baby are still dividing.
At 5 weeks pregnant, you're now in month 2 of your pregnancy. This week, you can officially take a pregnancy test — your hCG hormone levels are high enough to show a positive result, and you may have early symptoms like fatigue and nausea.
Week 4 of pregnancy
For example, a fertilised egg may have implanted in your womb just 2 weeks ago, but if the first day of your last period was 4 weeks ago, this means you're officially four weeks pregnant! Pregnancy normally lasts from 37 weeks to 42 weeks from the first day of your last period.
In a chemical pregnancy, the fertilized egg fails to implant properly in the uterine (womb) lining and/or survive in the uterus. Miscarriages caused by chemical pregnancy occur very early in pregnancy, usually at around week five of pregnancy, before the fetal heartbeat would be detectable via an ultrasound scan.
Week 5. The rate of miscarriage at this point varies significantly. One 2013 study found that the overall chance of losing a pregnancy after week 5 is 21.3%.
Most home pregnancy tests detect pregnancy about two weeks after conception, so you might want to jump to week 4.
This is because pregnancy is counted from the first day of the woman's last period, not the date of conception which generally occurs 2 weeks later, followed by 5 to 7 days before it settles in the uterus.
The date of your last period
Your due date is 40 weeks after the day you started your last period. This method is a good way to estimate when your baby is due because many women people the day they started their period.
So most people, including health professionals, will date your pregnancy based on your LMP (last menstrual period) instead . To work out how many weeks pregnant you are by this measure, try to remember when your last period started. The first day of your LMP counts as day one of your pregnancy.
A doctor will interpret the results as 1-2 meaning you are 3-4 weeks pregnant, 2-3 meaning you are 4-5 weeks pregnant and 3+ meaning you are more than 5 weeks pregnant.
Most miscarriages - 8 out of 10 (80 percent) - happen in the first trimester before the 12th week of pregnancy. Miscarriage in the second trimester (between 13 and 19 weeks) happens in 1 to 5 in 100 (1 to 5 percent) pregnancies. Pregnancy loss that happens after 20 weeks is called stillbirth.
Easing Your Miscarriage Fears
Take time to practice mindfulness, meditation, and take some time for yourself. This could include any stress-reducing activities you enjoy like yoga or going for a walk.
Recurrent early miscarriages (within the first trimester) are most commonly due to genetic or chromosomal problems of the embryo, with 50-80% of spontaneous losses having abnormal chromosomal number. Structural problems of the uterus can also play a role in early miscarriage.
Bleeding
In addition to the shedding of the uterine walls, miscarriage at 5 weeks will also comprise of the pregnancy tissues. As such, the bleeding is normally heavier than a period. At this time, the embryo is not yet developed and no recognizable tissue will be passed along with the blood.
What causes early pregnancy loss? About half of early miscarriages happen when the embryo does not develop properly. This often is due to an abnormal number of chromosomes. Chromosomes are in each cell of the body and carry the blueprints (genes) for how people develop and function.
In viable pregnancies, trans-vaginal (internal) scans should be able to detect a gestation sac from 5 weeks of pregnancy. A yolk sac can be seen at 5 1/2 weeks gestation. Trans-abdominal (external) scan may be less accurate at this early 5 week stage.
Key Takeaways at 5 Weeks Pregnant
You may also feel pregnant. Symptoms like morning sickness, exhaustion, bloating and sore breasts tend to kick in around this time as hCG is now ever present in your system. You might be able to hear the baby's heartbeat at 5 weeks, but it could take more time.
The reason doctors still use the last menstrual cycle as a benchmark is because it is difficult to know exactly when the sperm fertilized the egg. So when doctors say a woman is six weeks pregnant, it typically means the embryo started developing about four weeks ago.
Most OBs count pregnancy starting from the first day of your last menstrual period (LMP). (It's more accurate for doctors to estimate a due date this way.) So if you think you conceived about two weeks ago, you're probably at least four weeks pregnant—maybe even five.