Missionaries of the Sacred

Note: when referring to stages of a pregnancy, weeks 1 and 2 of a pregnancy may start before your child is even conceived. This is because doctors calculate the due date from the beginning of the woman's last cycle since it is hard to know the exact date of conception.⁶ This means that although your baby has a heartbeat at 5 weeks of pregnancy, it is only 3 weeks after conception, and so on.

• At conception, your baby's sex, hair and eye color have already been determined.⁵
• At 4 weeks of (2 weeks after conception), the nervous system and heart have begun to develop.⁵
  
• At 5 weeks, (3 weeks after conception) your baby has a heartbeat (the heart is fully formed) and arm and leg buds appear.⁷
  
• At 6 weeks, your child's nostrils are formed.⁵
• 40 days after conception (before the 8th week of pregnancy), the baby's brain waves can be measured and recorded. At 8 weeks, fingers and toes have appeared and the tongue has begun to develop.⁵
• By 9 weeks, your baby has begun to move, even though you can't feel it yet.⁸ At 9 weeks, your baby also has fingerprints.⁵
• At 11 weeks, hair begins to grow.⁵
• By 14 weeks, a baby can suck his/her thumb.⁵ At 14 weeks, he or she also begins to respond to external stimuli.⁸
• By 19 weeks, a baby has the same sleep and awake patterns as a newborn.⁵
• By 23 weeks, a baby can hear. (A special note for Dads: your baby can hear your voice! The low frequency sounds of the male voice penetrate the abdomen and uterine wall better than the higher frequencies sounds of the female voice.) If born now, your baby has a 15% chance of survival.⁵
• At 24 weeks, taste buds begin to form.⁵
  
• By 30 weeks, a baby's eyes can move side to side, following a light source. He or she can also produce tears.⁵