In the eighth month of pregnancy, you've reached the home stretch. Your baby still has some growing to do at this stage and you need to build yourself up for labor and delivery.

Human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG for short, is a natural hormone that women produce during pregnancy. Proponents of the HCG diet claim that consuming oral HCG supplements helps boost your metabolism, resulting in rapid weight loss.

Since the heart is a muscle, you may wonder if it will ache like other muscles when you first start to exercise. Unlike other muscles, your heart never gets out of shape from lack of exercise; your heart beats every day, every hour, every minute, no matter what you do.

Group A streptococcus – sometimes called “group A strep” – is a bacterium that often lives in your throat and on your skin. Although simply carrying the bacterium won’t always cause symptoms of an illness, group A streptococcus can cause infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Watching your belly grow as your baby develops is one of the many joys of being pregnant. However, the state of your belly also can be a source of concern, particularly if your belly starts showing much faster than a pregnant friend’s belly or you aren’t showing at all into your fifth month.

As your body prepares to host another life for a few months, several changes take place. A rapid increase in hormones prepares your womb and body for many of the demands required to support another human being.

During your first trimester of pregnancy, your body mostly undergoes invisible, chemical changes. By the second and third trimester, your growing belly causes aches and pains, but your first 12 weeks can pose challenges because of hormonal shifts, nutritional needs and low blood pressure.

Being pregnant with twins often carries with it twice the worry and more discomfort than a single pregnancy, particularly toward the end of the experience.

Optimal fetal positioning during labor -- where your baby is head down and facing your back -- positively influences your labor. Babies in this ideal position have an easier time moving through your pelvis and down the birth canal.

Pregnancy causes your body to go through many changes. Tissue upholding your uterus stretches, which has the ability to cause sharp, shooting pains on either side of your stomach that venture down your thigh, into your leg, according to Cleveland Clinic.

If you notice a swimming sensation in your stomach, you might be wondering about the cause. There are plenty of things that can initiate this kind of feeling, with one of the most well-known being pregnancy.

People have used fasting for many centuries as a therapeutic treatment, and some also practice it for religious and spiritual reasons. There are many degrees of fasting, from the meatless days of Catholicism to ascetic, water-only fasts that run for several days.