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Twins fetal development - 16 weeks pregnant

blood vessels head toes By 16 weeks, your twins will grow to 6 inches/ 14.2 centimetres long from crown to rump. They now weigh about 7 ounces/ 190 grams each. Your twins' unique fingerprints are already in place. And when you poke your stomach gently and they feel it, your twins will start rooting and sucking whatever is in front of their mouths, whether it is a hand, foot or an umbilical cord. This sucking reflex will give them the training they need for breastfeeding after birth.

If one or both of your twins are girls, they will now have approximately 2 million eggs in their ovaries; and they will have only a million by the time they're born. They will have fewer eggs as they get older, and by age 17, the number will have dropped to 200,000.

The fetuses' bodies are now growing faster than their heads. Your twins' parchment-thin skin covers itself with thick, downy hair called lanugo. Though eyebrows are beginning to grow and the hair on top of the head is sprouting, this hair may change in both texture and colour after birth.

Their legs are growing longer than the arms now, fingernails are fully formed and all the joints and limbs can move. You may be able to find out the sex of your babies by ultrasound now, since the external genitals may be developed enough that a sonographer can tell you if your twins are boys or girls.

At 16 weeks your twins' skeletons are mostly rubbery cartilage, which will harden later. A protective substance called myelin slowly begins to wrap around the spinal cord.

Their chests move up and down to mimic breathing but they're not taking in air, only amniotic fluid. They also start to have hiccups. Hiccups are an essential reflex used to train their diaphragms, the muscles they need for breathing when they are born.

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I have twins .at what side l should sleep?

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