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Day 125 of 280 · 17 weeks + 6 days

Clothes that give

Last reviewed · 3 min read · 9 sources · Plain-text version

Seventeen weeks and six days, the last day of your fourth month. The waist is going; today you sort the wardrobe, and the notes move on to month five.

Size this week
about the size of a pomegranate
Length this week
around 12 cm from head to bottom
A Black woman with a small bump in a loose knit top sorting clothes on a bed into two piles, a friend holding up a stretchy dress against herself, afternoon light from the window.

Seventeen weeks and six days, the last day of your fourth month. The task is the wardrobe. The news of the week is that the pregnancy is starting to show, which raises the question of who gets to know.

Your baby

A whole red pomegranate on a plain pale wooden board, soft window light.

Around 12cm from head to bottom, roughly the size of a pomegranate (NHS). Your baby reacts to loud noises now (NHS). Next week the NHS measures them at around 14.2cm from head to bottom, about the size of a bell pepper, with hearing, feeling, swallowing and sucking reflexes developing (NHS).

Your body

The waist begins to disappear as the womb rises out of the pelvis, making the pregnancy more obvious (NHS). Next week's page adds that your breasts may have grown a cup size, especially in a first pregnancy, and that clumsiness may increase as the belly grows (NHS). Clothes that worked last month stop working this one.

The sources don't sell clothes, but they do describe them. The NHS's tip for itchy skin is loose cotton clothing (NHS), and MedlinePlus's travel advice is to wear comfortable shoes and clothing that isn't tight (MedlinePlus). That's the whole brief: loose, soft, and able to give.

Try today

  1. The maternity-clothes sort

    Time: 20 minutes

    1. Pull everything that stretches, wraps, or ties to the front of the wardrobe: leggings, knit dresses, your partner's shirts.

    2. Put what's already tight at the waist in a box for later. It isn't gone.

    3. Write down the three things you actually need, not the twelve a list online says you do.

    4. Ask before you buy. Someone you know has a bag of maternity clothes she wants out of her house.

    Make it work:

    Loose cotton is the NHS's own suggestion (NHS), and it's also the cheapest thing in the shop.

Watch for

  • Normal

    symptoms from earlier weeks carrying on (NHS).

    Call your doctor or midwife as soon as you can

    about any bleeding; the NHS says to report it (NHS), and it's on the Office on Women's Health's call list too (OWH).

  • Normal

    swollen hands and feet, on the NHS's list of common symptoms (NHS).

    Seek care immediately

    for extreme swelling of your hands or face (CDC).

  • Normal

    a month of notes and lists.

    Call your provider

    if you feel like something just isn't right, even if it isn't on any list; the CDC's advice is to contact them if something seems wrong (CDC).

For you

Showing is not the same as telling. You don't have to tell your employer for several more weeks (NHS); in the NHS the latest is 15 weeks before the due date, around week 25 (NHS). Once you do, the NHS lists maternity rights, paid time off for antenatal appointments, and a workplace risk assessment (NHS). Wherever you work, MedlinePlus says most pregnant women can keep working, some until delivery; most are advised to lift only objects under 20 pounds (9 kilograms), and if you stand for long stretches, ask for 15 minutes of sitting for every hour of standing (MedlinePlus).

If you're the partner: the box of clothes that don't fit is a job you can do without being asked. Label it and put it somewhere she doesn't have to look at it.

That's your fourth month: the first milk, the second screen, the blood-pressure number, the Tdap window, the flutters. Next week your baby is the size of a bell pepper (NHS), and the notes continue in your fifth month of pregnancy.

Sources

This guide is general education that summarizes published research and guidance from groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC, and the WHO. It isn’t medical advice, and every child develops on their own timeline. Your pediatrician knows your child; if something feels wrong, call them. In an emergency, call 911.

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