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Charlotte Lozier Institute

Phone: 202-223-8073
Fax: 571-312-0544

2776 S. Arlington Mill Dr.
#803
Arlington, VA 22206

The
Voyage of Life
Weeks 1 and 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Weeks 15 & 16
Weeks 17 & 18
Weeks 19 & 20
Weeks 21 & 22
Month 6
Month 7
Month 8
Month 9 and Birth

Week 8

The first responses to touch

Human Prenatal Age
  • Post-conception week 6
  • Days 35-41
  • Gestational Week 8
Highlights

  • The embryo starts moving and responds to touch.1

  • The preborn baby has lips and a nose.

  • Eye pigment and eyelids start forming this week.2 The baby’s eye color will not finalize until about one year after birth.

  • Nerves enter the upper limb buds, and the arms start developing paddle-shaped hands.3

  • The glands that make saliva appear inside the mouth.4 

  • Nipples form near the embryo’s underarm. Over the next few weeks they move into the final position on the chest.5  The heart and lungs move deeper into the chest.

This week, the preborn baby starts moving, and the first sense develops: touch. The first fetal movements are slow,6 but very important. Prenatal movement promotes normal bone and neuromuscular development.7 Before the embryo can move, connections must form between the embryo’s neurons and muscles. The first connections between neurons and muscles are observed just before the first fetal movements.8

By 7 ½ weeks gestation, the embryo responds to a light touch on her lips or cheeks by reflexively moving away!9 The embryo moves away when his umbilical cord or the wall of the uterus touches him in the womb. By 10 weeks the embryo is regularly touching himself or herself.10

This photo was taken from an opened fallopian tube during an ectopic pregnancy surgery. Notice how in this 7 week gestation embryo the heart actually protrudes from the chest. It is also easy to see the limb buds, which will become the arms and the legs, as well as the developing eyes and brain. The ridges on the embryo’s back are called somites. (Image Credit: Ed Uthman, MD, October 12, 2001, Public Domain)

At this point, the embryo grows about 1 mm per day. Different body parts, such as the arms, legs, and head grow in spurts. The hands develop 3 to 4 days before the feet. By 8 weeks, the rays that will become the thumbs and fingers start to form.11

Although the liver does not make blood cells after birth, it starts by making white blood cells for the embryo.12  The white blood cells become part of the developing immune system.

If a pregnancy is ectopic, the signs and symptoms begin between five and eight weeks gestation. In an ectopic pregnancy, the embryo implants outside of the uterus, most typically in the fallopian tube.  In extremely rare cases, ectopic pregnancies can proceed to term,13 but in most cases, the embryo cannot continue to develop properly. For example, the embryo cannot grow large enough to survive inside the fallopian tube. Therefore, in these tragic medical emergencies, the embryo is either surgically removed or given drugs so that it stops growing.14 Thankfully, ectopic pregnancies are very rare.15

Dive Deeper
Ectopic Pregnancies
In an ectopic pregnancy, the embryo implants outside the uterine wall...
Read More
Back to The Voyage of Life
Sources
  1. Humphrey, “Some Correlations between the Appearance of Human Fetal Reflexes and the Development of the Nervous System.” 1964; de Vries, Visser, and Prechtl, “The Emergence of Fetal Behaviour. I. Qualitative Aspects.” 1982.
  2. Yang S, Zhou J, Li D. Functions and Diseases of the Retinal Pigment Epithelium. Frontiers in Pharmacology 2021 Jul 28;12:727870. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.727870; Tawfik, Hatem A., Mohamed H. Abdulhafez, Yousef A. Fouad, and Jonathan J. Dutton. “Embryologic and Fetal Development of the Human Eyelid.” Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 32, no. 6 (November 2016): 407–14. https://doi.org/10.1097/IOP.0000000000000702.
  3. Hill, “Week 6 - Embryology,” UNSW embryology: Week 6, 2020, https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Week_6.
  4. Moore, Keith L, TVN Persaud, and Mark G. Torchia. The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology. 10th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier, 2016.
  5. Moore, Keith L, TVN Persaud, and Mark G. Torchia. The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology. 10th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier, 2016.
  6. J. I. P. de Vries, G. H. A. Visser, and H. F. R. Prechtl, “The Emergence of Fetal Behaviour. I. Qualitative Aspects,” Early Human Development 7, no. 4 (December 30, 1982): 301–22, https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-3782(82)90033-0; J. I. de Vries, G. H. Visser, and H. F. Prechtl, “The Emergence of Fetal Behaviour. II. Quantitative Aspects,” Early Human Development 12, no. 2 (November 1985): 99–120, https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-3782(85)90174-4.
  7. P. G. Hepper, “Unravelling Our Beginnings | The Psychologist,” 2005, https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-18/edition-8/unravelling-our-beginnings.
  8. Tryphena Humphrey, “Some Correlations between the Appearance of Human Fetal Reflexes and the Development of the Nervous System,” in Progress in Brain Research, ed. Dominick P. Purpura and J. P. Schadé, vol. 4, Growth and Maturation of the Brain (Elsevier, 1964), 93–135, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0079-6123(08)61273-X.
  9. D Hooker, The Prenatal Origin of Behavior. (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1952); Humphrey, “Some Correlations between the Appearance of Human Fetal Reflexes and the Development of the Nervous System.”
  10. P. G. Hepper, “Unravelling Our Beginnings | The Psychologist,” 2005, https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-18/edition-8/unravelling-our-beginnings.
  11. O’Rahilly, R, and F Mueller. Human Embryology and Teratology. 3rd ed. Wiley-Liss, 2001.
  12. Moore, Keith L, TVN Persaud, and Mark G. Torchia. The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology. 10th ed. Philadelphia: Elsevier, 2016.
  13. Dubinsky, T. J., Guerra, F., Gormaz, G., & Maklad, N. (1996). Fetal survival in abdominal pregnancy: a review of 11 cases. Journal of clinical ultrasound, 24(9), 513-517. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0096(199611/12)24:9<513::AID-JCU4>3.0.CO;2-Q; Huang, K., Song, L., Wang, L., Gao, Z., Meng, Y., & Lu, Y. (2014). Advanced abdominal pregnancy: an increasingly challenging clinical concern for obstetricians. International journal of clinical and experimental pathology, 7(9), 5461.
  14. Condic, M. L., & Harrison, D. (2018). Treatment of an Ectopic Pregnancy: An Ethical Reanalysis. The Linacre Quarterly, 85(3), 241-251. https://doi.org/10.1177/0024363918782417.
  15. Al Naimi, A., Moore, P., Brüggmann, D., Krysa, L., Louwen, F., & Bahlmann, F. (2021). Ectopic pregnancy: a single-center experience over ten years. Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, 19(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12958-021-00761-w.
See Full Bibliography

All images and illustrations on The Voyage of Life were reviewed by credentialed scientists for accuracy.

Medical art animation was used to provide a schematic representation of fetal development, with some features, including timing, not to scale. The animation was chosen as an ethically uncompromised guide to fetal development. There are many real human images at each developmental age showing the most accurate fetal forms throughout development. A concerted effort was made to use images and material in which the human embryo or fetus did not undergo any known harm.

Page last updated on November 22, 2023