Week 13: The end of the first trimester

You’ve reached the end of the first trimester — a real achievement, especially if these weeks have been hard. Your baby, about the size of a peach, is forming unique fingerprints, practising tiny sucking movements, and starting to make white blood cells in the new bone marrow. The placenta is fully formed and doing its job beautifully.

For many people this is when the fog begins to lift: the nausea eases, energy creeps back, and appetite returns. A small bump may even be making an appearance, especially if this isn’t your first pregnancy. Your skin might look radiant — or dry and spotty — as hormones settle.

With your appetite back, it’s a nice time to focus on nourishing, varied meals rather than just whatever you could face keeping down. Gentle exercise often feels good again too. And if you’ve been waiting to share your news, many people feel ready around now — though, as always, the timing is entirely yours.

It’s a sensible point to get a few practical things moving, if you haven’t already: confirming your model of care, booking any screening you want, and — once you’re ready — telling work, since pregnancy is protected from discrimination and a little notice helps sort any adjustments. Keep a quiet eye out for the rare-but-important warning signs at any stage too — a severe or persistent headache, vision changes, heavy bleeding, or severe one-sided pain all warrant a call — but for most people, this is the doorway into a much more comfortable phase.

Take a moment to acknowledge what your body has done to get here — growing a fully formed little person from scratch, through some genuinely tough weeks for many people. With energy returning, this is a good time to gently reconnect with movement, friends and the things you enjoy, all of which are as good for your mood as for your body.

The second trimester ahead is, for a lot of people, the most comfortable stretch of pregnancy. You’ve done the hard early yards — be proud of that.