During the second week of your second trimester, your baby's features are beginning to take shape.
Meanwhile, by week 15 of pregnancy, your morning sickness could very well be gone — but you might be experiencing some other unpleasant symptoms, like bleeding gums.
Your Baby at Week 15
At a Glance
15 weeks pregnant is how many months?
If you're 15 weeks pregnant, you're in month 4 of your pregnancy. Only 5 months left to go! Still have questions? Here's some more information on how weeks, months and trimesters are broken down in pregnancy.
How big is my baby at 15 weeks?
Curious why your body is (probably) finally starting to look pregnant? It's because at 15 weeks pregnant, your baby is quickly growing bigger each week — he's as long as 4 inches right now and weighs around 2½ ounces.
Need a better visual? Hold a pear in your hand — that's how big your little darlin' is. Now that you're done looking, eat that pear for a delicious, nutritious snack!
Get ready for some major growth on your baby's (and belly's!) part in the weeks to come.
Baby is looking more like a baby
With each passing week, your fetus is also looking more and more like the baby you're picturing in your dreams.
By now, the ears are positioned properly on the sides of the head — they used to be in the neck — and the eyes are moving from the side of the head to the front of the face — where they'll soon meet your loving gaze.
Baby is practicing for the outside world
So what keeps your baby busy all day? Mostly, your fetus is in rehearsals — practice, practice, practicing and getting ready for that big debut.
Babies work on breathing, sucking and swallowing motions so that when they leave your comfy womb and move into your comfy house, they'll have the skills necessary to survive.
Your fetus is also holding daily aerobics classes — kicking, curling toes and moving those little arms and legs — but because he only weighs a couple of ounces, you won't feel the fetal movements going on inside your abdominal gym.
Your Body at Week 15
The golden months
Does it get any better than this? By this week, many of those bothersome early pregnancy symptoms have disappeared — and at 15 weeks, you're not too big to get around — or get out of your chair.
Now that you're finally able to open wide without throwing up or gagging on extra saliva, it's a good time to focus on your mouth, which, believe it or not, is also going through a number of pregnancy-induced changes.
Bleeding gums and dental care
Say cheese — and take a good look in the mirror. You might notice that you have red, swollen gums and they may even be sore, sensitive or prone to bleeding when you brush or floss. It's those pregnancy hormones at work again, this time triggering gingivitis, an infection and inflammation of the gums, by making them react differently to the bacteria in plaque.
Those hormones are also the cause behind a chronic stuffy nose or even nosebleeds. Look even more closely and you may notice a small lump on your gums, called a pregnancy tumor. Before you start worrying, keep in mind that these benign growths are scarily named but completely harmless and painless. If you do develop one, it should go away on its own after delivery.
What is a little more alarming is what can happen if you don't take care of your teeth while you're expecting. Gingivitis can progress to an infection of the bones and tissues supporting your teeth called periodontitis — and research has shown a link between periodontitis, premature labor and preeclampsia.
Prevention is key: Good oral hygiene, which includes regular dental care, brushing at least twice a day and gentle flossing once a day, will greatly reduce gum swelling, bleeding and soreness.
Gaining weight
Whether you were barely able to gain an ounce during the first trimester, thanks to all that toilet hugging, or you gained more ounces — and pounds — than you were hoping to, it's weight gain time now.
Starting in the second trimester, your baby's getting bigger and bigger, and consequently, you should be too. Make slow and steady your motto and aim for a weekly weight gain of about 1 pound.
But keep in mind that's an average, which means that it's perfectly fine to gain half a pound one week and a-pound-and-a-half the next, as long as you're netting about 4 pounds a month. Just be sure to do whatever your practitioner recommends on the weight gain front.
If you're weighing in at home, once a week or once every other week is plenty; just make sure you do it consistently, at about the same time and under the same conditions — undressed and right after getting up, for instance. Or leave the weigh-ins to your practitioner at your monthly visits.
Learn more about pregnancy weight gain.
Pregnancy Symptoms Week 15
Tips for You This Week
True or false: A fetal heart rate of fewer than 140 beats per minute means you're having a boy, while a heart rate of more than 140 beats per minute means you're having a girl. It's a notion that's been making the obstetrical rounds forever.
The truth? It's false.
Sorry, but while this theory sounds more plausible (and more grounded in medical fact), it's about as reliable as holding a ring on a string over your belly and determining the baby's sex based on which way the ring turns.
There are as many of these myths around as there are people to repeat them (and try them out at family gatherings). And while they may be fun to talk about, they all have one thing in common: Whether they predict baby is a boy or a girl, they have a 50-50 chance of being correct.
If you'd like better odds than that — the kind you can base your nursery paint colors on — ask your practitioner about your options for finding out baby's sex.
Do you struggle to fit healthy meals into your day? Adjust your schedule to squeeze in a lunch break — even if it's just a sandwich and a fruit cup.
Keep plenty of nutritious snacks on hand that will make feeding you and your baby easy: Stash bags of dried fruit and nuts, dry cereal and crackers in the pantry, and store a supply of individually wrapped cheese sticks, hard-boiled eggs, and yogurt and cottage cheese containers in the fridge.
The simplest way to gauge a baby’s size is to track the size of a woman’s uterus. To monitor baby’s growth and position, your OB/GYN or midwife will likely start to measure the distance between the top of your pubic bone and the top of your uterus.
Called the fundal height, this measurement is used as a reflection of how big your baby is.
Do you skip breakfast because you're not a breakfast person? Well, your baby doesn't mind if you opt out of the oatmeal and go for a toasted cheese sandwich instead — or even a slice of cold meatloaf from last night's dinner.
If you forgo the morning meal because you’re not a morning person, you might want to try setting your alarm for 15 minutes earlier, so you'll have a chance to wake up and grab some granola and yogurt — even if you have to eat your breakfast on the run.
If you're always in a rush, try to prepare something the night before, like a breakfast burrito that's ready to roll after a quick stop in the microwave or a bag of dry cereal and trail mix washed down with calcium-fortified juice.
Or whip up a quick breakfast smoothie — put all the ingredients in the blender jar, stick it in the fridge then give it a whirl in the a.m.
The amniotic fluid that surrounds your baby can provide you with a wide range of information about your little one's genetics and health.
Amniocentesis — also called "amnio" — is a procedure that extracts this fluid to detect conditions such as Down syndrome, Tay-Sachs, sickle cell anemia and more.
If you or your baby's other biological parent has a history of genetic conditions, or if other screenings have detected an abnormality, you may want to ask whether you should have an amnio done.
One of exercise's big benefits is that it burns calories. Card-carrying baby-builders like you, though, get the pleasure of replacing those calories with some healthy pregnancy snacks.
So 30 minutes before you exercise, hit the fridge for a light snack and a drink. Follow up your workout with an encore snack.
Bananas and orange juice are great options because they contain plenty of potassium, an essential nutrient that's lost when you perspire, plus they supply quick energy. Add a little protein for staying power like a hard-boiled egg or a cheese stick.
Preeclampsia generally develops later in pregnancy, after week 20, and is characterized by a sudden onset of high blood pressure, severe swelling of the hands and face, and signs that some organs may not be working normally, including protein in the urine.
If you're considered high-risk for preeclampsia, ask your practitioner about low-dose or baby aspirin. Taking baby aspirin (usually two a day, but check with your doctor) after the first trimester can reduce preeclampsia by 24 percent, according to some studies.
Reviewed September 30, 2022 From the What to Expect editorial team and Heidi Murkoff, author of What to Expect When You're Expecting. What to Expect follows strict reporting guidelines and uses only credible sources, such as peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions and highly respected health organizations. Learn how we keep our content accurate and up-to-date by reading our medical review and editorial policy.
- What to Expect When You’re Expecting, 5th edition, Heidi Murkoff.
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- U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, Low-Dose Aspirin Use for the Prevention of Morbidity and Mortality From Preeclampsia: Preventive Medication, September 2014.
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