30 weeks pregnant

How big is your baby at 30 weeks?

About the size of a cabbage — around 39.9 cm (15.7 in) long head to heel, according to the NHS, weighing roughly 1,523 g (3 lb 6 oz).

Your baby has gained more than 600 g since 26 weeks.

A note on the numbers: from week 20 the NHS measures head to heel, not head to bottom. Weights here are the median of the WHO fetal growth charts — half of babies weigh more, half less, and a scan estimate can be out by 10 to 15 per cent either way. A number below the median is not a diagnosis.

What's developing this week

The eyes can focus. Vision keeps developing after birth: the NHS notes your newborn will be able to focus on your face at about 20 to 25 cm away, and will not follow a moving object with their eyes until around three months old.

Everything else this month is weight and maturing rather than construction — the fat your baby is laying down now is what will hold their temperature steady after birth.

What you might feel

Trouble sleeping, and vivid or disturbing dreams when you do. The NHS names this directly for week 30 and is unusually gentle about it: the dreams are not real, they are fuelled by hormones and by anxiety about a genuinely large change, and talking about them helps put them in proportion. If you are under stress, tell your midwife or doctor.

Anxiety and low mood are among the most common complications of pregnancy, and among the most treatable. They are a legitimate reason to use an appointment.

Physically: heartburn, backache, breathlessness, swollen feet, and a bump that now gets in the way of ordinary things.

There is no target number of movements: the NHS is explicit that you do not need to count kicks. What matters is your baby's usual pattern, and calling immediately if it reduces, weakens or changes. Our kick counter describes a pattern; it does not score one.

Is 30 weeks pregnant 7 months?

Yes — week 30 is the third week of month 7. Ten weeks to your due date.

There is no official weeks-to-months map. A calendar month averages about 4.3 weeks, not 4, so 40 weeks is a little over nine months, and two apps can disagree. The most widely used mapping:

• Month 1 — weeks 1 to 4
• Month 2 — weeks 5 to 8
• Month 3 — weeks 9 to 13
• Month 4 — weeks 14 to 17
• Month 5 — weeks 18 to 22
• Month 6 — weeks 23 to 27
• Month 7 — weeks 28 to 31
• Month 8 — weeks 32 to 35
• Month 9 — weeks 36 to 40

Your maternity team will not use months. Everything is booked by week and day — "30 weeks and 3 days" — because a few days change what is offered.

What's happening at your appointments around now

No routine UK appointment at 30 weeks. The next is 31 weeks for a first baby and 34 weeks otherwise, and both cover the same ground: blood pressure, urine, bump measurement, movements, mental health, and preparing for birth.

Extra monitoring, and who gets it

If your pregnancy has complications you may be offered additional testing from around now. ACOG describes special testing usually starting between 32 and 34 weeks, earlier if problems are serious or there are several risk factors, and lists the triggers: a high-risk pregnancy, growth problems, Rh sensitisation, high blood pressure, decreased fetal movement, twins with complications, or a pregnancy going past 42 weeks.

The tests themselves are undramatic. A nonstress test records your baby's heart rate for at least 20 minutes and looks for it to rise as they move; two or more accelerations in 20 minutes is reassuring, and a flat trace most often means your baby was asleep. A biophysical profile adds an ultrasound and scores heart rate, breathing movements, body movements, muscle tone and fluid volume out of 10, where 8 to 10 is reassuring.

Being offered monitoring is not a verdict. Most of these tests are done to rule things out.

Is it safe to fly at 30 weeks pregnant?

In a straightforward pregnancy the RCOG position holds: occasional air travel is not harmful, and there is no evidence flying causes miscarriage, early labour or your waters to break. You are past ACOG's preferred 14 to 28 week window, and ACOG advises a check-up with your doctor 4 to 6 weeks before a trip — which, at 30 weeks, means the conversation is now.

Keep two things apart. The medical position is the RCOG's: the safest time to fly is before 37 weeks with one baby and before 32 weeks with uncomplicated twins, because from those points labour becomes likely. The airline position is a commercial rule — most carriers refuse you after 37 weeks, some set an earlier limit, and from 28 weeks most want a letter from your midwife or doctor, which the NHS warns can cost money and take weeks. An airline rule is not medical advice.

The risk that is real: blood clots

ACOG puts it plainly: any travel of four hours or more — car, train, bus or plane — doubles DVT risk, and pregnancy adds to that. Under four hours the RCOG says you are unlikely to need special measures. Over four hours:

• Loose clothing, an aisle seat, regular walks about the cabin
• In-seat exercises roughly every 30 minutes, and water steadily
• Graduated compression stockings sized for you by a midwife or doctor — ACOG warns that stockings which are too tight or worn wrongly increase the risk instead

Practical points

• Travel is not recommended at all if you have pre-eclampsia, prelabour rupture of membranes or preterm labour — ACOG names those three explicitly.
• Check what maternity and neonatal care exists at your destination, and carry your maternity notes.
• Tell your insurer you are pregnant. The NHS says cover should include care in labour, premature birth and the cost of changing your return date.
• Travel to Zika areas is not recommended; some travel vaccines and anti-malarials are unsuitable.

When to call your midwife or doctor

Maternity units are staffed 24 hours a day, and away from home you can walk into any of them.

Get emergency help now

Call your local emergency number (999 in the UK and Ireland, 911 in the US and Canada, 000 in Australia, 111 in New Zealand) or go to an emergency department if you have:

• Heavy vaginal bleeding, or bleeding with severe abdominal pain
• Abdominal pain you cannot concentrate through
• Fainting or collapse, chest pain, or sudden breathlessness
• A severe headache painkillers do not touch, blurred vision or flashing lights, pain below your ribs, vomiting, or sudden swelling of your face, hands or feet — NHS and ACOG both list these as pre-eclampsia symptoms needing immediate assessment
• Pain, swelling or heat in one calf or thigh, which can be a DVT

Call your midwife or maternity unit today, whatever the hour

• Any reduction, weakening or change in your baby's usual pattern of movements. Call immediately, not in the morning, and do not use a home doppler — hearing a heartbeat does not mean your baby is well
• Regular tightenings, period-type pains, or backache that is not usual for you — the NHS list for possible premature labour, meaning labour before 37 weeks, which affects about 8 in every 100 babies
• A gush or a trickle of fluid, which could be your waters breaking
• Any vaginal bleeding, however light
• Itching without a rash, especially at night or on your palms and soles — it can be intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy
• A temperature, feeling generally unwell, or burning when you pee

You do not need to be certain something is wrong. That is what the number is for.