21 weeks, anterior placenta & anxious about “regular” movement

[EllieJade95]

I’m currently 21 weeks and have an anterior placenta. I started feeling small movement (more like kicks) from about 19 weeks and started actually seeing the movement on my stomach from about 20 weeks (I know I’m really lucky to see this so early).

I still feel that I only really feel her move in the mornings when I wake up/in bed and then the evenings when I’m in bed. The odd time I will feel her throughout the day once or twice but I wouldn’t say that’s common.

I have also had a number of occasions where I see her moving on my stomach but don’t feel it. I also sometimes have to prod around to get movement going.

I find myself stressing out over “reduced movements” because I don’t know what’s reduced. For example, last night in bed I had to poke around to feel her and even then it was mostly just seeing her movement. This morning I did the same but I got out of bed a lot quicker than I normally would and I only really got her going 3 times. Does this all sound normal? I feel until you’re feeling your baby constantly throughout the day it’s hard to know what’s reduced movement and you can so easily stress yourself out!

It’s the pattern that should be regular - and you have described a pattern - mainly in the morning and at night in bed. So it would be “reduced” if you didn’t feel movement at these times.

I’m 25 weeks with an anterior placenta and the movements have got much more noticeable over the last few weeks - hopefully yours will too.

I had anterior placenta and never really felt any movements except the odd fluttering, certainly never saw anything or felt a sharp kick. It it unnerving as you’ve no idea about reduced movement, and every midwife appointment I was nervous when they listened for heartbeat in case something was wrong I’d not picked up on. Ds was born perfectly healthy on his due date

I have an anterior placenta, I was exactly the same at around that stage, early morning and in the evening felt a few movements. At that point they are so small even without the anterior placenta it can be hard to feel it. By the time I was at 25/26 weeks it was definitely more noticeable but even in certain positions (such as if I was sat up in a chair at work or stood up/walking) hard to really feel well. I went in once for reduced movement at 28ish weeks I think it was, as id felt nothing for quite a few hours, and it turned out that she had moved into a head down position so was lying straight behind the placenta so that again made it harder. But currently 34 weeks and she's doing fine but I still find myself worrying on occasion! If you're finding yourself getting unreasonably stressed you need to talk to someone about it. Good luck!