Week 22: your baby is the size of a solenodon

Your fetus is now about the length of a Hispaniolan solenodon, a shrew-like mammal roughly 28 to 33 cm long found only on the island of Hispaniola. It is a genuine living fossil, part of a lineage that split from other mammals more than 70 million years ago, back when dinosaurs still walked.

It is also one of the very few venomous mammals. It delivers toxic saliva through a groove in its lower incisors, the way a snake uses fangs, to subdue insects and other small prey.

Slow, nocturnal, and famously clumsy, it survived tens of millions of years only to be pushed to the brink in a few centuries by introduced cats and mongooses. Seeing one in the wild is now a rare privilege.

Meanwhile, inside you

Your fetus this week is starting to look much more like a newborn, with distinct lips, eyebrows, and tiny eyelids. Their grip is getting stronger, and they may grab the umbilical cord.