Week 32: your baby is the size of a tree pangolin

Your fetus now weighs about 1.7 kg, roughly a tree pangolin: the only mammal on Earth covered head to tail in scales. Those scales are made of keratin, the same material as your fingernails, and when threatened the pangolin rolls into a ball so tight and armoured that even a lion usually gives up.

It has no teeth at all. Instead it tears open ant and termite nests with heavy claws and laps up insects with a sticky tongue that, fully extended, can reach about half the length of its entire body and anchors deep inside its chest.

That same armour is its curse: pangolins are the most trafficked wild mammals in the world, hunted for their scales and meat, and all eight species are now threatened.

Meanwhile, inside you

Your fetus this week has fingernails and toenails, and their skin is turning from red to pink as fat builds up underneath. They are also practicing sucking and swallowing in earnest, getting ready to feed.