Your baby

Your embryo is now about 1.5 to 2.5mm long – about the length of a grain of rice. Yet even at this minute size, all of your baby's major organs are beginning to develop.

Your baby's brain and nervous system are evolving. The neural tube, which will later become the spinal cord, is fusing and your baby's heart will begin to beat at twice your own heart rate. Already, your baby’s facial features are beginning to form and buds appear that will become arms and legs.

While all these amazing changes occur, your baby is floating gently in amniotic fluid and a tiny umbilical cord has connected itself to the placenta, which is now developing rapidly.

Your progress

If you're experiencing waves of nausea right now and even the scent of food makes you want to retch, it's hard to imagine that you'll ever love eating again. But in only a few months, you'll probably be amazed at how hungry you become. What's most important is not so much how much you eat as the nutritional quality of what you eat.

Vitamin pills aren't designed to cure a poor diet. Our bodies absorb nutrients best through actual food sources. This is particularly true of iron (from beef, chicken, pork, spinach, whole wheat bread, fortified cereal, baked beans) and calcium (from yoghurt, milk, cheese, leafy greens, kidney and other beans, dried figs, fortified breads and cereals.) Surprisingly, your pregnant body only needs about an extra 300 calories per day - not a big change from your pre-baby days. So while it's tempting to follow the old adage to "eat for two," and to give into every whim and craving, too much weight gain isn't healthy and can make pregnancy problems even worse.

What to think about

Healthy eating during pregnancy

Eat at least two servings of fruits and three servings of vegetables every day. Try mixing vegetables into soups, casseroles or a lasagne.

Get into leafy greens. Spinach and kale are rich in calcium, fibre, vitamin A and C and iron. The darker the leaf, the greater the nutritional value.

Drink two pints of milk every day to make sure you're getting all of the calcium you need.

Up your fibre to help avoid constipation and thus haemorrhoids. Good sources are beans, oatmeal, bran cereal, strawberries, apples, and pears.

Pack your own snacks such as nuts or dried fruit in your handbag, and consider keeping a stash in your car and desk drawer, too.

Think about freezing healthy soups and broths that you can pop into the microwave at dinner time.