measurement question

[lowra]

Another question from me

I'm 28 weeks and have my next midwife appointment on Friday where I am told they will start to track the measurements of the baby, and the position she is in.

Now, I am probably being a bit thick and definitely underestimating the midwife. But how can she get this information from just having a feel around? Am I missing something?

I have an anterior placenta and baby seems to move forward and backwards ifykwim, so sometimes I can feel bits of her from the outside but sometimes she seems to be quite far back, I can't imagine the mw would be able to measure her or tell what position she's in.

Hi, had my 28 wk appointment today. MW measured the height of my bump, if she had been worried it was small or big I think she'd have referred me for an extra scan to measure the actual baby.

She pressed on my bump and could feel the baby's head and also found the heart on her scanner so could tell me which way the baby was lying. She said I couldn't do any damage by pressing on my bump to feel the baby through it if I wanted to. DH and I have just tried and can definitely feel something in there and it wiggled around and then started kicking where I pressed.

HTH

They measure your bump from the top of the uterus to the pelvic bone. It "should" measure the number of cm that you are in weeks ie if you are 28 weeks, it should be 28cm. Quite often it doesn't measure that - try searching "measuring small" on MN.
THe MW will aslo have a feel to see whether baby is head down or not - they can'e always tell. hth

Happycamel, I sometimes press lightly on the bump but when she is in her 'forward position' she feels like she is just under the skin and I do worry that I am harming her. Think I have definitely felt a head and probably a bum though.

MW told me not to worry about hurting baby by pressing on my bump and I'm RH- so have more reason to worry about triggering a bleed than most. Was told that at 25 weeks and 28 weeks by two different MW.

I think the pressure must be too indirect to cause a problem, it's not like they are being pressed by anything sharp just your womb shoving them a bit.

Its all bollocks! Now, I know nothing about babies and pregnancy, (even though Im due on Friday )

However, six weeks ago at my growth scan I was told he was too small, at just over 3lbs, three and a half weeks later I was told he`d doubled in size, and today I was told he weighs 9lb 1oz

Thats according to the length of my belly, but they arent taking into account that Ive always had a spare tyre, those charts and measurements arent accurate, neither are the growth scans.

So dont worry about measurements, Im 100% certain I do not have a 9lber inside me right now, and if you look at some of the replies to the growth scan threads on here, you`ll see lots of women saying just how wrong they were, and thats a scan, measuring the belly with a tape is even more of a guess

sorry this just sounds ridiculous. this primitivism reminds me of a third world country. i am going for scans privately. that's the only way to track fetal growth and development properly. otherwise, you might as well get a measruing tape and do it yourself at home...

Not quite a third world country just not one that believes in providing adequate health care for all by not spending money unnecessarily. Midwives usually can tell which way up a baby is by feeling it and can get an idea about the size from carrying out some basic measurements. If anything is too far from the norm or they are unable to get a good indication of the babies position then you go for a scan, which by the way doesn't always give a totally accurate indication of size either as you'll find a number of stories such as my friend who was due to give birth to a 9lb girl and ended up with a 7lb boy despite having private consultant led care including a number of scans along the way.

Basically the only truly accurate way to know what size your baby is is to give birth to it and then weigh and measure it!

They can't measure this way if your BMI is less than 19 though, apparently. That's why I had to go for extra scans at 28 and 34 weeks.

I have never understood this. I measure about 34 weeks when I'm not oregnant, how the hell can they get a sensible measurement of my uterus through that? It was bedcause of this that the last 2 weeks of my pregnancy last time were hellish.