Early signs of pregnancy: When will I feel symptoms?


There’s very little research on this topic, and early symptoms of pregnancy are different for everyone. Some women feel the first twinges of pregnancy a week or two after conceiving, while others don’t feel any different for a few months.

In the best study on this question to date, 136 women who were trying to get pregnant kept daily records of their symptoms from the time they stopped using birth control until they were 8 weeks pregnant. (That’s counting eight weeks from the first day of their last menstrual period.) The results:

50 percent had some symptoms of pregnancy by the time they were 5 weeks pregnant.
70 percent had symptoms by 6 weeks.
90 percent had symptoms by 8 weeks.
The first sign of pregnancy is usually a missed period. The most common symptoms to follow are nausea, vomiting, fatigue, frequent urination, and breast tenderness and swelling. These symptoms can be mild or severe.