The Journal
Because motherhood comes with a lot of questions.
From trying to conceive through pregnancy and life with your baby, The Journal gives you clear, evidence-based guidance without the overwhelm.
Practical answers, explained simply, for the things you are actually wondering about.
43 articles
Pregnancy
36 Weeks Pregnant: The Week the Countdown Begins
Last week, your baby was filling out into a soft little newborn. This week, things shift from growing to getting ready. Your baby starts moving into position, and the countdown to meeting them...
Pregnancy
5 Weeks Pregnant: The Week the Heart Starts to Beat
Last week, you saw the line. This week, your baby grows a heart, and it starts to beat.
Pregnancy
32 Weeks Pregnant: Getting Ready to Be Born
Last week, your baby's brain was wiring itself into a whole mind. This week, your baby turns their attention to something new entirely. Getting ready to be born.
Pregnancy
35 Weeks Pregnant: The Secret Purpose of All That Baby Fat
Last week, your baby was rehearsing for their very first feed. This week, they turn their energy to filling out, plumping into the soft, round newborn you are about to meet. And that gorgeous baby...
Pregnancy
4 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby Announces Itself
For three weeks, your body has been keeping the most extraordinary secret. This is the week it finally lets you in on it.
Pregnancy
1 Week Pregnant: The Egg's Story That Began Before You Did
Before the positive test. Before the missed period. Before you even suspected anything had changed, there was already a story unfolding inside your body.
Pregnancy
2 Weeks Pregnant: The Greatest Race You Will Never See
Last week, the egg waited. This week, it is finally set free, and the most extraordinary race in all of nature begins.
Pregnancy
3 Weeks Pregnant: The Week You Might Quietly Become a Mother of Two
Last week ended on a cliffhanger. The race was won, and one tiny sperm was pressed against the egg, about to break through.
Pregnancy
6 Weeks Pregnant: The Week You Might See the Heartbeat
Last week, deep inside you, your baby's heart flickered into life and started to beat. This week, it settles into a steady rhythm, and for the first time, there is a real chance you will actually...
Pregnancy
7 Weeks Pregnant: A Quarter of a Million Brain Cells a Minute
Wherever you are reading this, stop for just a second and breathe.
Pregnancy
13 Weeks Pregnant: Building the Voice That Will One Day Call You Mama
Last week, you reached the end of the first trimester, with a baby who could already curl its fingers around anything that touched them. This week, you step into the second trimester, and...
Pregnancy
14 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby Starts Making Faces
Last week, your baby's voice was taking shape. This week, it is the face's turn.
Pregnancy
15 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby Starts Moving on Purpose
Last week, your baby learned to make faces. This week, those movements gain something brand new. Purpose.
Pregnancy
17 Weeks Pregnant: The Lifeline Between You and Your Baby
Last week, your baby began to hear the sound of you. This week, let me tell you about the extraordinary thing that has connected you both from the very start, and that grows strong and sturdy now....
Pregnancy
18 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby Starts Keeping Its Own Hours
Last week, I told you about the cord that joins you. This week, your baby starts doing something that will feel very familiar once they are here. Sleeping and waking, on a schedule entirely their own.
Pregnancy
19 Weeks Pregnant: The Week You Feel Your Baby Move
Last week, your baby began keeping its own little hours. This week, all that secret activity may finally break through to you, and you feel your baby move for the very first time.
Pregnancy
22 Weeks Pregnant: Your Baby Is Learning the Shape of Itself
Last week, your baby was tasting your dinner. This week, your baby reaches out with brand new hands and begins to explore, touching its face, holding the cord, and slowly learning the shape of its...
Pregnancy
8 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby Starts to Move
Last week, your baby's brain came alive. This week, the body it will one day command starts to move.
Pregnancy
9 Weeks Pregnant: A Full Set of Teeth, Years Before the First Smile
Last week, your baby was an embryo. This week, it has a new name.
Pregnancy
10 Weeks Pregnant: Ten Fingers, Ten Toes, and Fingerprints All Their Own
Last week, your baby got a new name and a hidden set of teeth. This week, look at the hands.
Pregnancy
11 Weeks Pregnant: Practising to Breathe, Months Before the First Breath
Last week, your baby grew ten tiny fingers and a fingerprint all their own. This week, that little body comes alive, and begins to rehearse something it will not truly need for another six months....
Pregnancy
12 Weeks Pregnant: A Hand That Already Knows How to Hold On
Last week, your baby began practising to breathe. This week, you reach the milestone so many women quietly count down to. The end of the first trimester.
Pregnancy
16 Weeks Pregnant: One of the first sounds your baby will come to know is you
Last week, your baby began to move with purpose. This week, your baby gets ready to do something just as remarkable. Listen.
Pregnancy
20 Weeks Pregnant: Halfway There, and Carrying Three Generations at Once
Last week, you may have felt your baby move for the very first time. This week, you reach the middle of it all. The halfway mark. And it comes with one of the most staggering facts in the whole of...
Pregnancy
21 Weeks Pregnant: Your Baby Is Already Tasting Your Dinner
Last week, you reached the halfway mark. This week, your baby does something that will make you smile every time you sit down to eat. Your baby starts tasting your dinner.
Pregnancy
23 Weeks Pregnant: Getting Ready for the First Breath
Last week, your baby was busy learning the shape of itself by touch. This week, deep inside that growing little body, the lungs begin one of the most important projects of all. Getting ready to...
Pregnancy
25 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby's Brain Begins to Fold
Last week, your baby started to answer you back. This week, deep inside that busy little head, the brain takes on the shape it will keep for life. It begins to fold.
Pregnancy
27 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby Starts Learning You by Heart
Last week, your baby opened their eyes for the very first time. This week, you cross into the final stretch, and your baby begins to do something profound. Not just to hear you, but to know you,...
Pregnancy
28 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby Learns Your Scent
Last week, your baby began learning your voice by heart. This week, the very last of their senses switches on, and it brings them even closer to you. Smell.
Pregnancy
33 Weeks Pregnant: The Week You Give Your Baby Their First Shield
Last week, your baby was getting into position for the big day. This week, you begin giving them something extraordinary, a gift only you can give. Your own hard-won immunity.
Pregnancy
34 Weeks Pregnant: A Protective Coat for The Journey Out
Last week, your body began arming your baby with your immunity. This week, your baby starts rehearsing the very first thing the two of you will do together once they arrive. Feeding.
Pregnancy
37 Weeks Pregnant: Your Baby Is Ready, and So Is Your Liquid Gold
Last week, the countdown began. This week brings two milestones worth celebrating. Your baby is officially ready for the world, and your body has perfected the very first gift it will give them....
Pregnancy
38 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby Learns Day from Night
Last week, your baby reached early term and your liquid gold came in. This week, while everyone waits, your baby is quietly busy with something rather lovely. They are beginning to learn the...
Pregnancy
40 Weeks Pregnant: The Finish Line, and Your Baby's First Breath
Last week, your baby reached full term and may have been getting ready to call the day. This week, you reach the finish line. Week forty. Your due date. The moment all of this has been quietly...
Pregnancy
39 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby Chooses Their Own Birthday
Last week, your baby was learning day from night. This week, they reach full term, completely ready for the world. And here is the astonishing part. Your baby may be the one who decides when the...
Pregnancy
24 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby May Start Dreaming
Last week, your baby's lungs began getting ready to breathe. This week, something even more wonderful happens between the two of you. Your baby starts to answer.
Pregnancy
26 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby Opens Their Eyes
Your baby has spent months building all the tiny pieces of themselves.
Pregnancy
29 Weeks Pregnant: The Bones That Will Carry Them a Lifetime
Last week, your baby's final sense switched on. This week, your baby gets seriously strong, building a skeleton out of you, and growing big enough that they become a presence you can truly feel.
Pregnancy
30 Weeks Pregnant: The Week Your Baby Starts Doing It Themselves
Last week, your baby was building a skeleton out of you and becoming a presence you could feel. This week, something quietly momentous begins. Your baby starts taking over the jobs your body has...
Pregnancy
31 Weeks Pregnant: The Wiring of a Whole Mind
Last week, your baby began taking over the running of their own body. This week, deep in that busy head, the wiring of a whole mind is being laid, connection by connection, at a furious pace.
Pregnancy
What a kick count actually tells you
A kick count is not about reaching one perfect number. It is about knowing your baby, and getting checked straight away if their movements change.
Trying
Myth: you can only get pregnant on the day you ovulate
One of the biggest misunderstandings when you are trying to conceive is thinking you need to have sex on the exact day you ovulate. You do not. Some of your most fertile days happen before ovulation.
Baby
Why I will not tell you the exact time your baby should sleep
I cannot tell you the exact minute your baby should go to sleep. But I can help you get pretty close, by looking at their awake window, their tired cues and their sleep pressure together.
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