Baby's head not even vaguely engaged at 35 weeks. Is that a problem?

[norktasticninja]

I saw the midwife today and she seemed quite worried that the baby was laying in an awkward position and that the head wasn't engaged yet. I though it was quite usual for babies to engage late in subsequent pregnancies. Is that not so?

She told me to call immediately if my waters break and to lay down (presumably to try and avoid cord prolapse), TBH I'd have though that waters breaking at 35 weeks would be a cause for immediate concern anyway. But that's another issue.

So, do I need to worry about the baby not beginning to engage yet and is there anything I can do to encourage him/her down?

I thought that with 2nd pregnancies onwards its common for the head not to engage until labour is established. At my last appointment at 37 weeks they have wrote on my notes 'Ceph long-free ' which I'm assuming means not engaged whatsoever, does anyone know as this means as it has been bugging me as its what they have written the last few visits. They have never expressed any concern over this, but I am booked in for a c-sect so this wouldnt be an issue I suppose.

I also think it's pretty normal, especially at 35 weeks, that's pretty early for any baby to be engaged, certainly it's early for a 2nd pg, ime.

I went for a MW appointment at 40+1 with my 3rd and he wasn't engaged in the slightest. She didn't mention anything at all to me about waters, etc. I went into labour about 6 hours after my appointment and delivered him in under 2 hours so the lack of engagement made no difference anyway!

If I were in your position, I wouldn't worry too much. I'd maybe do plenty of Optimal Positioning stuff to try and get the baby into a better position but that's it.

babies can be engaged 1 minute and not the next, they're good like that! so chances are up until you give birth the baby will engage then pull out, roll around, jump about and just generally do things that cause you to worry for no reason, i'm sure if your midwife had any big concern she would have sent you to the hospital to get checked out.

Thanks all!

I've been looking into OFP but the little varment is changing position all the time at the moment anyway. Usually he has his back somewhere in the bump but yesterday he decided to go and lay more back to back, probably just to give the midwife something to talk about...

I'm 37 weeks and yesterday's ultrasound clearly showed baby's head is not engaged. I was told this is because he has a big head, but hey, maybe it was ultrasound guy's sense of humour.