What are sign of pregnancy?

Everyone experiences different symptoms of pregnancy and at different times. It’s important not to compare your pregnancy to someone else’s because pregnancy symptoms can vary so dramatically.

There are several signs of early pregnancy that you may or may not have. The most common symptoms include:

Remember, the only way to know for sure that you’re pregnant is to take a pregnancy test or have your healthcare provider perform an ultrasound.

There are some additional signs of early pregnancy that aren’t as common. Just like with the most common symptoms, these signs of pregnancy may or may not happen. It’s important to remember that everyone is different and experiences signs of pregnancy differently.

Less common signs of early pregnancy can include:

It varies. Some people feel pregnant within a few days of conception, while other people don’t feel pregnant for weeks after a positive pregnancy test. Pregnancy symptoms vary between people and even between pregnancies.

Yes, you can feel pregnant before you miss your period. Some people say they’ve felt pregnancy symptoms within a week of conception (about one week before a missed period).

Many of the symptoms of early pregnancy overlap with other medical conditions, as well as your typical menstrual cycle. Premenstrual symptoms can be very similar to pregnancy symptoms. This can make it difficult to tell the difference. You can also miss a period and not be pregnant. This can happen when you lose or gain a lot of weight or are stressed. Breastfeeding can also cause your period to stop.

The best way to know you’re pregnant is to take a pregnancy test. Pregnancy tests are available at your local pharmacy or grocery store without a prescription.

Pregnancy tests work by detecting a certain level of human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) in your pee. You can take a pregnancy test as soon as you’ve missed your period. However, it’s best to wait at least one week after you’ve missed your period to get the most accurate results. While some tests claim to give you accurate results before a missed period, taking a test too soon can result in a false negative (the test says you aren’t pregnant, but you are).

Your healthcare provider can take a blood sample to test for pregnancy as early as one week before a missed period.

If you’ve missed your period and gotten a positive pregnancy test, your next step will be to call your healthcare provider for your first appointment. While scheduling, your provider may ask if you have already started taking a prenatal vitamin containing folic acid. Prenatal vitamins are important in early pregnancy because they help in the development of the fetal neural tube. The neural tube will become your baby’s brain and spine. Many healthcare providers recommend that anyone who could become pregnant take folic acid at all times.

If you’re planning a pregnancy, a preconception appointment with your healthcare provider is a good place to start. A preconception appointment is especially important if you take medication for a chronic illness or have other medical conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure or lupus.

During this appointment, your provider will discuss any current medical conditions, as well as your general health before pregnancy. This appointment is meant to get you into the best place for a new pregnancy.

Did you miss your period, and are starting to ask yourself “Am I pregnant”? Or, maybe there's a gut feeling that you can’t shake. It's normal and understandable to wonder what are the early signs of pregnancy as you mentally cross off the different feelings you’ve been experiencing in the past few days. You may start experiencing specific signs and symptoms of pregnancy early on even before you know for sure that you’re pregnant. Of course, either a home pregnancy test or a test through your healthcare provider will be the best way to determine if you’re pregnant. In the meantime, take this “Am I Pregnant?” quiz and read up on some of the early pregnancy signs and symptoms you may start feeling about one to two weeks after a missed period and within the first month of being pregnant:

Each mom-to-be and each pregnancy is unique, so you may only notice some of these early signs of pregnancy. For example, the first signs and symptoms of pregnancy could occur before a missed period; alternatively, missing a period may be your first clue that you’re pregnant. What’s more, the symptoms you notice in a second pregnancy may be different from what you experienced the first time around.

You may be wondering when pregnancy symptoms start. Once again, it’s different for every woman. Some may experience early signs of pregnancy in the first few weeks after conception. Others may be pregnant and not experience any symptoms at all for a while.

You may be asking yourself “How do I know if I’m pregnant?” If you think you may be pregnant, a home pregnancy test will confirm it. There’s no way to know that you are pregnant without taking a test. If you’re experiencing any of the symptoms of pregnancy and take a home pregnancy test but the test comes out negative, there’s still a chance you may be pregnant. Wait until your period is a week late (or more), and then take the test again. If the test comes out positive, make an appointment with your healthcare provider to confirm the pregnancy. Once your pregnancy is confirmed, check out our go-to pregnancy guide, which includes lots of pertinent information and tools you'll need to navigate your pregnancy, including infographics, checklists, trackers, and more! If you like, use our due date calculator to find out how far along you are in your pregnancy:

Throughout your pregnancy, your body will do some unique and wonderful things. Some of these physical changes (like morning sickness) may subside, while others (like nasal congestion and heartburn) may continue over the course of your pregnancy.

These are some of the changes you may experience during the second and third trimesters of your pregnancy:

Watch the following video to find out how your partner can be more involved during your pregnancy:

Most of the time, the aforementioned physical discomforts and changes are completely normal, but there are some signs you should not ignore, including severe headaches, changes in eyesight, or sudden swelling (edema). If you notice anything that just doesn’t seem right, consult your healthcare provider.

A pregnancy test is the only way to know for sure. But if it’s too early to take a test, you may be on the lookout for early signs – or maybe you think you’re already experiencing some early pregnancy symptoms.

Is it too early to tell if you’re pregnant? What symptoms may be the earliest signs of pregnancy? Below, we answer those questions and more.

Again, you’ll need to take a pregnancy test at the right time to confirm your hopes or suspicions. But when it comes to the first symptoms of pregnancy, everyone is different. Some people start to notice changes within a week after conception. Others might not notice anything until they miss their period.

It’s usually recommended that you take a pregnancy test after you’ve missed your period. This is because pregnancy tests measure the level of human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) in your body, which is a hormone that starts to build up when you conceive. It can take around three to four weeks from the first day of your last period for there to be enough hCG in your body to show up on a test.

Your menstrual cycle is your body’s way of preparing for a possible pregnancy each month. Part of that is the thickening of your uterine lining, which is where a fertilized egg would implant to begin a pregnancy.

If you’re not pregnant, your period is how your uterus sheds that extra lining. If you are pregnant, that lining stays put and you don’t get your normal flow. This is why a missed period is often the earliest sign of pregnancy.

Of course, a delayed or missed period doesn’t always mean you’re pregnant. If your body is under a lot of stress or you have a hormonal imbalance, you could be experiencing an irregular menstrual cycle.

Every person – and every pregnancy – is different. So, if you are pregnant, you’ll likely experience a unique combination of common, not-so-common and sometimes overlapping symptoms. And, they may show up earlier or later than expected. Here are more than a dozen possible symptoms of early pregnancy.

Many women are surprised to learn that spotting or light bleeding can be an early sign of pregnancy, but about one-third of women experience it. This is often called implantation bleeding because doctors believe it occurs as the fertilized egg attaches (or implants) itself into the uterine lining. This is different from bleeding that could occur from something like a miscarriage – which is usually heavier.

When does implantation bleeding occur?

Implantation bleeding typically occurs 10 to 14 days after conception, which is just before or right around the time your period is due. So, you may think you’ve gotten your period.

But implantation bleeding is a light flow, which may start and stop over a couple days. And while it can take on a range of colors, it’s more likely to be pink, brown or light red.

Your period, on the other hand, may start off light in flow and in color but after a couple days becomes heavier, changes to a crimson red color and lasts up to a week or so.

While cramps and lower-abdominal pain can signal a coming period, they can also be a sign of egg implantation.

What do implantation cramps feel like?

Implantation cramps can occur with or without spotting or bleeding, and may feel different from period cramps. For example, you might feel mild to moderate prickling, pulling or tingling that comes and goes over a few days.

But menstrual cramps can often feel like a throbbing or dull ache, and typically start a day or two before your period.

If you’ve been tracking your basal body temperature (BBT) to increase your chances of getting pregnant, you probably know that your BBT goes up slightly right after ovulation. If you’re pregnant, your temperature may remain elevated rather than dipping back down.

Of course, you could be running hot for other reasons, but if it lasts more than a few weeks, pregnancy may be the explanation.

If you’ve already been checking your cervical mucus to figure out when you’re most fertile, here’s a reason to continue: In the first few weeks of pregnancy, the amount of cervical discharge may increase and become stickier and whiter.

When you’re pregnant, your body experiences big changes in hormones – specifically, increases in estrogen and progesterone – to support your growing baby. This change in hormones can contribute to many symptoms, including breast tenderness.

Oftentimes, increased breast tenderness, swelling or tingling start to become noticeable a few days before a missed period.

If you usually experience breast tenderness leading up to your period or shortly after it begins, pregnancy-related breast tenderness and swelling will likely be more intense than you’re used to and stick around. You may also experience nipple soreness.

Fatigue in early pregnancy is common, and some women might notice it before they know they’re pregnant. In fact, fatigue may set in as soon as one week after conception. This is thanks to those sudden changes in hormone levels, particularly increasing progesterone.

If you’re making more trips to the bathroom than usual around the time your next period is due, it may be a sign of pregnancy.

Certainly, your drinking habits play a big role in how many times you pee in a day. However, pregnancy increases the amount of blood in your body, which gives your kidneys more fluid to filter and more waste to get rid of.

So if you’re pregnant, you may notice you’re peeing a lot more – a symptom that can start early on and (unfortunately) last throughout your pregnancy.

Morning sickness might be the most well-known of all pregnancy symptoms, taking the form of food aversion or nausea, and even vomiting for some. This symptom can set in as early as two weeks after conception, which is around the fourth week of pregnancy and right around the time you’d miss your period if you were pregnant.

But some may not experience nausea or vomiting at all. And despite its name, morning sickness can actually happen at any time of the day or night.

When you’re pregnant, your areolas (the areas round your nipples) will likely grow and darken. Usually, these changes are gradual and continue throughout pregnancy. However, some women notice these changes really early on in combination with other symptoms.

We all experience bloating or constipation from time to time, but both are quite common during pregnancy. Once again, those changing hormones are the culprit. They slow down digestion, which can cause a buildup of air in the gut and lead to constipation.

Early on, bloating or constipation may be mild and accompanied with other pregnancy symptoms. But – as a heads up – if you really are pregnant, these symptoms may stick around throughout your whole pregnancy.

Many women report a metallic taste in their mouth during pregnancy. Once again, hormones are to blame – specifically, estrogen.

Typically, this symptom (as well as changes in taste overall) is common in the first trimester but may occur at other times too – including before a missed period.

Many women report that sensitivity to smell was one of their first signs of pregnancy. In fact, as many as two-thirds of women become more sensitive or reactive to the smells around them during pregnancy.

And oftentimes, this heightened sense of smell can stick around through the first trimester or beyond, and contribute to other symptoms such as nausea, and food cravings or aversions.

From a stressful day at work to the natural wonders of your menstrual cycle, there are a lot of things that can affect your mood. But changes in mood are very common during pregnancy – and they may be especially noticeable early on as your body gets a sudden burst of estrogen and progesterone.

If you are pregnant, any mood changes you’re experiencing are likely coupled with other symptoms such as fatigue or nausea. You may feel more sensitive or weepy. Or perhaps your fuse is a little shorter and you’re more easily annoyed.

Headaches are a part of life. They come with colds and allergies. They come with stress or fatigue, or when you cut down on caffeine to help prepare your body for pregnancy. But they can also come with pregnancy.

Headaches can happen thanks to the increasing blood volume and hormonal changes that occur in early pregnancy. You can also get headaches if you’re dehydrated as a result of nausea.

As blood flow increases during pregnancy, blood pressure can also decrease and lead to dizzy spells. Usually, dizziness is more of a second trimester symptom, but some women may notice it very early on, too.

A lot of people are shocked to learn that nasal congestion can be a pregnancy symptom. You may wonder if you’re coming down with something or your allergies are acting up. But if you’re noticing a stuffy or runny nose along with other pregnancy signs, you might be taking a pregnancy test in the near future.

The mucous membranes in the nose are also affected by hormones and increased blood flow throughout your body. This can cause blood vessels to swell, resulting in congestion and even sneezing.

Yes. As we’ve mentioned, many early pregnancy symptoms can overlap with symptoms of other conditions, especially premenstrual symptoms. So, the best way to know if the symptoms you’re experiencing are pregnancy related is to try to relax and patiently wait until it’s time to take a pregnancy test.

An embryo is the tiniest thing—not even half an inch long in the first two months of pregnancy. But the changes it wreaks on a woman’s body right from the start are enormous. This is primarily due to the shifts in key hormones that start at the beginning of a pregnancy, says Sherry Ross, MD, a gynecologist and author of the books She-ology and She-ology, the she-quel.

These hormones include estrogen, progesterone, and human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), which multiplies rapidly at the start of a pregnancy.

Of course, the most accurate way to know that you are pregnant is to take a home pregnancy test. This test uses urine to measure hCG and is generally accurate as early as two days before your expected period, says Hugh Taylor, MD, chair of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive Sciences at Yale School of Medicine and its medical practice, Yale Medicine. (Remember that pregnancies are dated from the first day of your last menstrual period, which means that a woman with a regular monthly cycle might already be four weeks pregnant at this time.)

Of course, women who have irregular periods can find it harder to know when to test. If you get a negative test, repeat it the following morning the first time you use the bathroom, when the hCG is most concentrated, Dr. Taylor says. If it’s still negative and you haven’t yet gotten your period, test again a few days later.

While waiting for pregnancy test results, many women look to their symptoms to help determine if they have conceived. It’s important to note that symptoms are different for every woman. Some experience many signs, others just one or two—or even none. And many of the symptoms attributed to early pregnancy can also be caused by other situations and conditions.

Still, symptoms are the way many women know they are pregnant. Here are 10 of the most common early pregnancy signs you should look for:

You may think that if you’re slightly bleeding or spotting it’s a sign your period is on its way, but this can actually indicate a fertilized egg implanting into your uterus or other normal effects of early pregnancy. A quarter of pregnant women experience this spotting, researchers published in the American Family Physician.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spotting generally starts about 6 to 12 days after you conceive.

This spotting may last a few days or can continue for several weeks, or even through the first trimester. Experts at the Cleveland Clinic note that this implantation bleeding might look like a brownish discharge or it may contain small drops of redder blood.

Bolting for the bathroom at every turn is something many women assume happens only in later pregnancy, when the uterus is big enough to press on their bladder. But it’s also a common symptom in the first few weeks, Dr. Ross says.

That’s because the hormone hCG increases blood flow to your pelvis, and the extra fluid volume can trigger the need to urinate more.

If the urinary frequency is accompanied by pain or cloudy urine, though, it’s possible you have a urinary infection and should be checked, Taylor says.

As early as a week after you conceive, you may find yourself getting extremely tired. Chalk that up to hormones as well as the support system the body starts setting up right away to house, feed, and grow a baby, Taylor says. Blood gets pumped to the fetus to deliver nutrients, and all those hormones start soaring — all of which can tax a woman’s body.

If you do feel fatigued, be kind to yourself and put your feet up. You might even take a daily nap, even if you haven’t nodded off in the daytime since childhood.

“Breast tenderness if one of the earliest and most common signs of pregnancy. It occurs as a result of hormonal changes which start the process of getting your milk ducts ready to feed the baby,” Ross says.

Your boobs may feel as sore as they sometimes feel before your period, the Cleveland Clinic notes. But other changes may accompany this soreness: Nipples may darken and enlarge. And some women start busting out of their bra because the hormones enlarge breast tissue.

Whoever coined the term morning sickness obviously never had it, because nausea and vomiting can actually happen any time of the day.

This sensation generally starts from two to eight weeks after conception, the NIH says, and it may continue throughout pregnancy, although most women improve after the first trimester.

Adjusting mealtimes and eliminating foods that especially make you nauseous are some ways to deal with morning sickness, advises the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

More severe cases, when women feel sick for several hours a day and vomit frequently, are known as the medical condition hyperemesis gravidarum. Fortunately, this affects only 3 percent of pregnancies, ACOG says. Women with this condition sometimes need to be hospitalized to restore crucial body fluids that are being lost.

Most women don’t actually want that mythical pickles-and-ice cream combo, but food cravings do regularly occur, as does disliking a formerly favorite food.

A review of cravings in pregnancy published in Frontiers in Psychology lamented how little research exists for such a common symptom, which Ross says occurs in more than half of pregnancies. Cravings typically start in the first trimester. In one study the reviewers cited, three-quarters of women reported craving at least one food item by the thirteenth week of pregnancy.

What do women most want in early pregnancy? Mostly sweets, including fruits, juices, dairy, desserts, and, frequently, chocolate. But a small number of women prefer savory or salty fare, the review authors noted.

It’s not clear why these cravings happen. Some speculate it’s due to fluctuating hormones, which can change the sense of taste or smell, but others say it fills specific nutritional needs of the fetus or are brought on by cultural norms or other factors.

Headaches normally come on during the first trimester of pregnancy, according to the nonprofit organization March of Dimes, brought on by stress, lack of sleep, or other situations.

Of course, head pain can signal many things besides pregnancy — flu, sinus infection, and more — so it’s best to use this in concert with other early pregnancy symptoms when trying to determine whether you’ve conceived.

If you do get headaches early in pregnancy, the March of Dimes suggests drinking a lot of water, trying to get quality sleep at night, doing stress-reducing techniques like yoga or deep breathing, and identifying triggers such as eye strain or certain foods that you might avoid or limit.

Mild cramping in the pelvis, lower back, or abdomen commonly occurs early in pregnancy, as the embryo attaches itself to the uterus.

These cramps should feel more like discomfort than pain, the Cleveland Clinic cautions. Severe cramping or pain mostly on one side of the body could indicate an ectopic pregnancy or other complication. Contact your healthcare provider immediately if you experience cramps like this.

Fluctuations in body temperature during a woman’s cycle are extremely subtle — with resting, or basal body temperature typically rising just ½ degree F at the time of ovulation. To catch a body temperature that might indicate early pregnancy, then, you have to be taking it every day.

There is no specific temperature that indicates an early pregnancy, states the period-tracking company Clearblue. However, basal body temperature is highest during ovulation and soon starts falling if an egg is not fertilized. If your basal body temperature has risen and stays up for the next 18 days, that’s a sign you may be pregnant, the company says.

To track basal body temperature, keep a thermometer on your nightstand because this temperature must be taken every morning, ideally at the same time, before getting out of bed. Record the temperature on a paper chart or a tracking app for easy comparison with prior days.

• Missed period. Missing a period is often the first sign of possible pregnancy.
• Nausea and vomiting. 'Morning' sickness is a condition that affects more than half of all pregnant women.
• Breast changes.
• Fatigue.
• Frequent urination.
• Food cravings.
• Backache.
• Breathlessness.