Can baby run out of room? Reduced movement questions

[YullBeHappy]

DS is here safe and sound, currently 6.5 months!

So basically, from about 20 weeks I had very clear movement and he was very wriggly at times, so much so that I often couldn't focus on my work.

However, I got to 32 weeks and bang, no movement.

He literally wouldn't move. I didn't feel a thing. The only way I would know he did move slightly was if I applied pressure to an area of my bump. He would slowly push me away but after the 1st go, it was as if he got use to it and stopped responding.

I was in and out of hospital on ECG/CTG (can't remember which one it is), everything always came back as fine.

But after the 5/6th trip there, I was offered an induction. Their reasoning was that although every test came back as fine, Mum was always the best judge if something wasn't quite right.

I declined, and carried on coming in every day or so for monitoring. They said monitoring may not work one day and it'll be too late by the time the monitor was put on bump. But against medical advice, I carried on.

They said to come in if movement changes but how was I suppose to know what 'normal' meant anymore, I hadn't felt him move in weeks!

To cut a long story short, DS was born bang on his due date and looked quite shocked when he came out There were a few seconds of him looking like he was still have a cosy sleep! Then he opened his eyes quite startled, as if he hadn't known he was coming out of the birth canal.

I just knew everything was fine. In hindsight, I wasn't very sensible at all to have waited and just let myself go into labour naturally. I'm aware of that. But I'm curious about my pregnancy and labour. Why didn't my DS move once he got to a certain gestation? Surely he did run out of room, in his case?

If it adds anything to what he's like as a baby, he slept through from birth and I would always wake up started, thinking he wasn't breathing, for about 4 weeks!

He's now 6.5 months old and doesn't wake until he's had a good 12/14 hours a night.

Is he just lazy?

Babies categorically do not run out of room. Its stretchy in there! It's a fact that is constantly being publicised by Kicks Count, a charity whose aim is to prevent stillbirths.

I've no idea why your baby's movements changed and in your position I wouldn't have taken the same course of action. Glad it all worked out for you but you are very lucky. The outcome could have been so different and that doesn't bear thinking about.

Any pregnant woman who experiences reduced movements should go in for monitoring and - IMO - follow medical advice if it's thought there's a risk to baby.

black Oh no, I really do agree. Induction would've been safest for the lack of movement I was feeling.

But interestingly enough, I could often see him moving around when I was strapped to the monitor. But never felt him

I think it depends a lot on their position? Mine was on the go 24/7 until about 28 weeks then he was quieter and I worried a lot. But at 27 weeks he had moved from transverse to breach and they also had difficulty doing his growth scans as he was quite far back? I learnt his new pattern though which was a lot less often but normal for him. I had a growth scan at 35 +2 and he was still breach but that night he turned head down and broke my waters, and the doctor when I got to the hospital said it was possible he didn't have the space to turn. I believe it also depends on where your placenta is located to how much you can feel.

Emily He did seem to stay in the same position, he was always head down with his feet near my ribs (according to scans)

My placenta was normal, not anterior etc, so that wasn't the cause.

Plus an anterior placenta doesn't get thicker as pregnancy goes on, and I felt loads of movement before 32 weeks

I find this post interesting, I have had 8 episodes of the reduced movements, and they still won't offer induction, I'm now 36 weeks, and think they should induce me at 37 weeks as I feel like something isn't right, all the ctg's are fine and scans are fine but I just feel like something isn't right

I don't know what you want from this thread? It sounds like you want people to tell you that reduced movements is just fine and that you were being sensible to refuse induction. But reduced movements isn't fine and normal, and that's quite a dangerous message for this thread to push on other women, who might not be as lucky as you if ignoring medical advice.

Interesting. I am currently 33 + 6 and had to go in due to reduced movements once at 32 weeks as well. I just couldn't feel him. But when I was strapped to the monitor and lay on my back, he could not keep still. In that position I could feel him a bit, but mostly I could see he was moving. Quite often, I can feel him move much better when I have my hand on my belly and then recline onto my back. That was not necessary a few weeks ago. My placenta is posterior as well. I think the movements have changed and I imagine it is position and possibly room as well. He doesn't move less, but differently and feeling him is for me for some reason less likely than seeing him move. Still, I will go in again if worried and would certainly consider an induction if that was the medical advice.

Sounds like you took a risk and were lucky it paid off.
It certainly isn't normal for babies to stop moving.

I agree with Lisa and I also don’t understand why you will post such a dangerous thread on this board. You seem to be passing the message that it’s fine to take a risk?!

agree with Lisa and I also don’t understand why you will post such a dangerous thread on this board. You seem to be passing the message that it’s fine to take a risk?!

That's definitely not my intention of the thread. I'm well aware now that by leaving it, it was incredibly dangerous.

But I am curious as to why and I don't think it's unreasonable of me to want to gain insight.

He was obviously fine, he came out fine and all the tests inside the utero were fine.

I was also told that he may well be fine, he may well not be when induction was spoken about.

So, if we take that he was perfectly fine, why did I stop feeling him?

I'm not advocating not checking out reduced or no movement and if ever a pregnant woman told me her baby's movements had changed, I'd tell her to get checked out straight away

If your doctors were unable to find out why you stopped feeling movement, it's unlikely that strangers on a message board will have the answer.

What @MollyDaydream said. Why would strangers on the internet be able to tell you that your medical team couldn't?

Your experience sounds very similar to mine. I felt a lot of movements up until 30ish weeks but then they diminished. They became infrequent and very subtle. I had virtually no kicks, no big rolls, no big movements. It was just little squirms and wiggles. I also went in for monitoring on a few occasions but baby was always ok. Like you, I could hear baby moving on the monitor but I couldn't feel it at all. I mentioned the tiny movements at my midwife appointments and she said that baby was running out of room 😳 and that he was going to be big and that was why he didn't make big movements (I knew this was nonsense and politely said so) but she stood by her statement.

Anyway, waters went on my due date so I went into hospital to be checked out. I didn't feel any movements at all on the drive to hospital no matter how much I prodded and poked. I was quite frantic by the time I got to hospital. I was monitored again and the heart beat was fine but I still couldn't feel him moving and couldn't hear him either. They midwives wanted me to go home until labour started but due to the lack of movements they said it was best to keep me in until contractions began.

Anyway, my ds was born a very short while later (thank goodness we didn't drive home as I would have had him in the car) and for the first 6-7 weeks of his life all he did was sleep. He would guzzle milk for 10 minutes every 3 hours but for the other 23 hours a day he would be fast asleep and barely move.

So in my case his worrying lack of movement was due to his "sleepy" personality which was demonstrated after his birth. He was a big baby like the midwife had said but to suggest he'd run out of room was irresponsible and could have led to disastrous results had I not been following the Count the Kicks campaign and known the truth.

I don't think anybody will be able to tell you why.

The fact is that running out of room is a common myth and an extremely dangerous one, unfortunately.