Chorevia

Day 155 of 280 · 22 weeks + 1 day

Taste

Last reviewed · 2 min read · 8 sources · Plain-text version

Twenty-two weeks and one day. Your baby's taste buds are developing. For one week, try a different vegetable or herb each day, for the variety and the fun.

Size this week
about the size of a sweet potato
Length this week
around 27.8 cm from head to toe
A Latina woman with a small bump in a loose striped t-shirt at a market stall, holding a bunch of fresh basil up to smell it, a friend beside her with a paper bag of vegetables, bright daylight.

Twenty-two weeks and one day. Today is a light one: something new on your plate every day for a week, and a word about the marks your skin may be collecting.

Your baby

A single sweet potato on a plain white ceramic plate, soft daylight.

Around now your baby is around 27.8cm long from head to toe, about the size of a sweet potato (NHS). Their taste buds are developing, and the NHS says they may be influenced by what you eat (NHS). That's as far as the page goes, and it's as far as this note goes too: no promises about a child who loves broccoli.

Your body

Stretch marks may be appearing on your tummy, upper thighs or breasts. They're harmless and usually fade after the birth (NHS). They're very common, affecting up to 8 in 10 women (NHS), and they may look red, brown or purple (MedlinePlus).

MedlinePlus is honest about the shelf of creams: lotions and oils can't really prevent stretch marks, though avoiding excessive weight gain can lower the risk (MedlinePlus). The OWH's advice is one word: be patient, because they usually fade after delivery (OWH).

Try today

  1. The flavour week

    Time: 10 minutes to plan, then a little each day

    1. Write seven days down the side of a page.

    2. Next to each, write one vegetable or herb you don't usually buy: fennel, beetroot, mint, okra, dill, kale, a squash you can't name.

    3. Shop for the first three today.

    4. Each day, add that day's one to a meal you'd be cooking anyway. Make some of them leafy: MedlinePlus suggests 4 to 5 servings of vegetables a day, at least 2 of them green leafy ones (MedlinePlus).

    5. Tick off the day, and put a star by anything you'd buy again.

    Make it work:

    Skip raw or lightly cooked sprouts, and don't eat enoki mushrooms raw; the CDC says sprouts are safer cooked until steaming hot (CDC).

Watch for

  • Normal

    needing the toilet more often.

    Tell your provider

    if you're also unusually thirsty; gestational diabetes often has no symptoms, but when it does they can include increased thirst and more frequent urination (CDC).

  • Normal

    puffy feet after a salty meal or a long day.

    Call your provider

    for sudden swelling in your hands or feet, or rapid weight gain, which can be signs of preeclampsia (OWH).

  • Normal

    an upset stomach after an unfamiliar meal.

    Call your provider or go to the hospital

    if you think you might be in preterm labor; abdominal cramps, with or without diarrhea, are on the NICHD's list of signs, along with contractions every 10 minutes or more often (NICHD).

For you

Cook for the pleasure of it. This isn't a diet, and there's no extra eating to do yet: the NHS says no extra calories are needed until the third trimester at week 28 (NHS).

If you're the partner: you choose day four. Cook it, too.

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.

Get each day’s note the morning it applies

Add your due date to a free Chorevia household, and every morning until the birth the day's note arrives in the app and by email: what's forming, what your body is doing, one thing to try, what to watch for, and a word for you.

Create your household