31 weeks pregnant: what is happening this week

41.1 cm, and the NHS reaches for a coconut - the first comparison in the whole series that is about weight as much as length. Sucking is being practised, which is the skill that has to work immediately on the outside. Amniotic fluid volume is up. Familiar voices are being recognised, which is the payoff for anyone who started reading out loud back around week 15. Braxton Hicks contractions typically appear about now: the bump tightens for twenty or thirty seconds and then releases, without pain and without pattern. They are practice, they are common, and the thing that distinguishes them from labour is that they do not become regular, do not intensify, and do not get closer together. There is an antenatal appointment this week in a first pregnancy - bump measurement, position, movements, and how you are both doing. The bump may also drop noticeably as the head moves down. That can happen weeks before anything else does, so it is a change rather than a countdown.