When do pregnancy symptoms start? The answer to that differs for every woman around. One woman might notice some of her pregnancy symptoms starting a week or so after conception while another woman won’t notice anything until she’s around six or seven weeks pregnant. The only reason she might know she’s pregnant is if she misses her period and takes an at-home pregnancy test that confirms her pregnancy.
There is something called early pregnancy symptoms. These might be something you begin to notice in advance of missing your period. Some of the most common early pregnancy symptoms that start around week three and four of your pregnancy are fatigue, nausea, and sensitivity to smell.
If you think you are around this far along, don’t be surprised if you notice that you suddenly can’t stand the smell of your husband’s cologne or your own deodorant makes you physically ill. You’ll notice the smell of cat food that you never noticed before. The simple smell of garlic used lightly as a seasoning for dinner might seem overpowering. One spritz of your perfume might have you feeling light-headed and queasy. Sensitivity to smell is a very common early pregnancy symptom.
Fatigue might begin earlier than anything else. You might begin to notice that you are exhausted, unable to keep your eyes open, and you might find yourself napping more during the day and falling asleep earlier than usual at night. The sheer amount of work going on inside your body right now is amazing. You are creating life. Your body is preparing to continue making life for the next nine months and with all that’s going on inside, it’s amazing you can keep your eyes open at all. It takes a lot of energy to form a baby in the earliest weeks of pregnancy.
Nausea is perhaps the most unfortunate and most common pregnancy symptoms. However, if you don’t notice nausea appearing this early, don’t start asking yourself when do pregnancy symptoms start to appear. Some women are lucky enough not to experience any nausea, so please try not to wish it on yourself. It’s not fun. It isn’t just morning sickness. It can occur anytime of the day, morning, noon, and night. Sometimes it lasts all day long for months. Sometimes it lasts a few hours a day for a few weeks. Sometimes, for some women, it lasts the duration of your pregnancy.
Not all pregnancy symptoms start early. Some don’t start for several weeks after you find out you’re pregnant. One such pregnancy symptom is frequent urination. You might not notice yourself running to the restroom to empty your bladder frequently when you’re only a few weeks pregnant, but when you reach the six or seven week mark, you might begin to notice more frequent urination urges. This might taper off for a bit during your second trimester, but it will only get worse as you enter your third and your baby grows significantly, causing it to put more pressure on your bladder.
Another sign of pregnancy you might start to notice around this time is either an aversion or craving for certain foods. It’s not uncommon for pregnant women at this stage to suddenly hate the idea of their favorite foods. What once made you so excited you couldn’t wait to eat suddenly makes you cringe with disgust.
Additionally, you might notice you want to have things all the time you never really liked before. Perhaps you’re not a fan of fast food and rarely ever eat it, but you suddenly find yourself dying for a cheeseburger and very salty French fries.
You might experience both aversions and cravings at the same time. It’s not uncommon to want to eat nothing but a certain food all the time while at the same time deciding that everything else tastes horrible and isn’t worthy of your time.
The good news is that most pregnancy symptoms will start to stop after a while. The majority of your symptoms will begin in the early weeks of your pregnancy. Many of these symptoms are due in large part to the fact that your body is producing so many additional hormones to keep your baby healthy and to support your fetus. This overwhelming amount of hormonal changes provides you with all these not-so-great pregnancy symptoms.
Many of your symptoms will only last until about the time your second trimester begins. Once this begins, your hormone level will begin to balance out and you might notice less frequent bouts of nausea and illness, you won’t notice as many smells, and you’ll feel better as whole. Of course, this doesn’t work for everyone, but it is something that does happen to most women.
The good news is that not all pregnancy symptoms are as bad as nausea and frequent urination. Some are actually pretty good. For example, sometime in the first trimester you might notice that your skin clears up. You might notice that your hair is thicker and lush. You might notice your nails grow stronger and faster, and you might notice that more and more people begin to tell you that you have a glow that’s just lovely. Pregnancy symptoms do happen; but they’re not all that bad. If you think you might be experiencing some of these pregnancy symptoms, take our online pregnancy test to see if you might be pregnant.