37 weeks: encouraging baby to engage?

[thelady]

As a relatively clueless 1st-timer, is there anything I can do to encourage this little blighter to engage? It's been head down for months, but keeps just bumping around the pelvic brim rather than engaging.

I've been given a deadline of 40 weeks for induction due to the size of the baby (boo hiss!) and hope to encourage it out sooner if at all possible.

Thanks for any advice.

sit on a gym ball
walk lots
sleep on your side

you don;t have to agree to be induced at 40 weeks

women tend to grow the size of baby they can birth

and if you and your DH are tall and well built, more chance of you having a bigger baby

lots of good birth positions to enable pelvis to open up

you need to be given faith in your body, not a deadline

and growth scans and palpation are still guestimates of weight, and have been known to be very wrong

Thanks for the reassurance. They haven't given me a size for the baby, just that it's on the 95th centile according to scan measurements. My immediate family (3 siblings) were in the 7lb region but the rest of the extended family on both sides seems to grow big babies (none under 9.5lb and a few over 12lb!).