Anxiety with Anterior Placenta

[Mamtobe2024]

Hi,

I'm currently 23 weeks with an anterior placenta and it's starting to cause me anxiety. I had my 24 week midwife appointment next week so I am going to mention to my midwife about my anxiety.

However the anterior placenta just scares me, like some days I can feel baby very well and other his movements feel more muffled or less frequent which sends me into a panic. If anyone has had an anterior placenta what was it like for you in terms of movement? This is my first baby so I'm over cautious about everything and the fact I have an anterior placenta makes it worse as I don't know what's normal for movement at this point with an anterior placenta.

@Mamtobe2024 Hey, sending support. This is my second pregnancy and 22 weeks along. I have a fundal placenta last time and felt everything. This time I have an anterior placenta and it’s a LOT different. I completely get the anxiety because you do feel a lot less movement (or at least I’ve notified a big difference). And I really miss the reassurance of regular daily movements.

At this stage you’re going to be feeing movements more that are low down or in your sizes, and missing the ones more centrally. But baby will get bigger and stronger and from what I understand to expect is that the movements will become more pronounced even with an anterior placenta, it’s just going to take longer to feed it than those with a different placenta positioning.

I don’t think they recommend “counting kicks” until a little later on? You’ll also just need to slightly readjust - so what’s normal for your baby / you to feel might be less than other people. So it’s just getting used to thinking “I can’t feel baby right now, but that’s normal for me. I’m going to try again later”. Once you know what your normal is, then you will have a better gage of if something is different. If you’re ever concerned you’ve not felt baby moving for longer than is your normal, you can always call a midwife and asked to be checked :)

Having an anterior placenta is a bit rubbish when all you want is that regular reassurance x

Hi FTM with anterior placenta here and I'm nearly 38 weeks. Didn't feel any proper movement until I think about 23/24 weeks and then it wasnt every day. My baby still doesn't really have a pattern but you will know what is unusual, for example if it's been a good 3/4 hours and I haven't felt a thing I'll make a point of really concentrating or lying down and waiting, usually then there will be some activity. I had a scan a couple of weeks ago and could see baby moving and couldn't feel a thing so even later on you can't feel everything. It is anxiety inducing and I've lain awake at 3-4am wondering if I should be going to triage a number of times but then get a roll or a kick.

I think I'm just such a worrier especially due to a previous loss i worry about every single thing and got my self in such an anxious state yesterday because I couldn't feel him but I did eventually at around 5pm.

I know he is an active baby as I've seen him on the scans, especially at my 20 week scan he was kicking away and I couldn't feel it. It's just scary but I'm sure once I start to figure out what his pattern is further down the line then I may not panic as much. I know babies at this point don't tend to really have much of a pattern x

It's so scary isn't it. Did you find that you had many days where you didn't really feel baby? My baby seems to have a couple days of being very active then not so much for a day or so. But he may just be changing position which is resulting in me not feeling as much.

He did a big turn the other night and then lo and behold yesterday I didn't feel much which makes me think he's just moved to a place where I can't feel him. Such a scary time x

@Mamtobe2024 yes until probably about 30ish weeks there were days I hardly felt anything at all. Then there were days she was going nuts! Obviously if you are really worried then get checked out they'll never think you are wasting time and I believe you can ask for extra monitoring if you are anxious. It does get easier tho when you feel daily movements, but as I said even now at 38 weeks I don't feel every movement which is apparently totally normal.

It's strange how they can have active days and then days where they seem to be abit lazy. I think they just like to keep us on our toes 😂 I'm definitely going to mention the fact it's making me anxious to my midwife, I'm an anxious person naturally anyway but the anterior placenta paired with the fact it's my first baby is just a lot some days as I don't know what's normal and what isn't

Just wanted to send some solidarity - I could have written your posts myself! I'm also 23 weeks with an anterior placenta, I felt my first movement at just over 19 weeks but even 4 weeks on from that it's still really inconsistent. I have spells of really feeling baby bouncing around and then quiet days with only the odd flicker or flutter, and like you I was definitely hoping to be feeling more by this point. Every time I think movements are increasing I then go through a phase of not feeling much and it can be very anxiety-provoking (I naively assumed that once I started to feel movement I would feel better, instead it's become something else to worry about!). Unsurprisingly I've spent lots of time trying to figure out what's "normal" - thanks Google - and a lot of information suggests that things might not really ramp up until past 25-26 weeks. I'm going to see how things are over the next week and if it doesn't feel like much is changing I might call triage, if only so I can be told that I don't need to be worrying about it.

@Mamtobe2024 Even with my daughter there were quieter and more active days. I also found that movement kind of peaked at the start of the third trimester and then towards the end of pregnancy it changed as they start to run out of space and hopefully shift to head down, so then it was a lot less rolls and much more pressure down low and discomfort in my diaphragm. Definitely say to midwife as they can refer you to mental health team to
help with anxiety

It's so strange isn't it! I thought the exact same when I felt the movements getting stronger I thought I'd feel better but I think I will be one of those people that's regardless what I think will reassure me it doesn't 😂 but as you say my baby is the same he will have phases of being very active to then like yesterday and the day before being very quiet and the movements felt muffled. He definitely keeps me on my toes haha, I would love to have a posterior placenta so I could be more aware of him but every scan I've had he's always so active and I've never been able to feel much at all. At my 20 week scan the sonographer said it looks like he's using your placenta as a punch bag he was kicking about in there and I couldn't feel a thing 😂 I'm going to ask my midwife about how to know if something is wrong like I know people say keep an eye on your babies pattern but I've read a lot online and it seems babies with an anterior placenta sometimes don't have a distinguished pattern. I suppose as the baby gets bigger it may be easier - it's all just one big worry!