How to Make Baby Move More in Womb

I'm now 31 weeks significant. The weeks are flight by, and for the most part, I'm relishing all the physical changes in my body and the preparations for this baby. We waited a long time for this pregnancy, and it will probably be my last. I curl around my belly at dark and remember about the baby growing inside me. I wonder about the person that he or she volition become and how our petty family volition adapt to welcome a second child. (We've called not to learn the sex of this baby until its birth.)

When I was pregnant with Cee and nearly to get a mom for the showtime time, I idea a lot virtually what kind of female parent I would exist and how this big life transition might change my identity, my career path, my marriage, and my daily life. The baby-to-exist was kind of a vague amalgamation of all the babies I'd known.

This fourth dimension around, having been around many more babies, I recognize the individuals that babies are from the first days of life – and fifty-fifty in utero – and I spend a lot more fourth dimension wondering about this infant'due south temperament and personality. Introverted and contemplative, like Cee? Or totally dissimilar?

Filling me with wonder, this baby moves around in utero a lot, and this feels very different from my feel carrying Cee. I didn't feel movement from Cee until around 23 weeks, merely I began to feel this baby move at 16 weeks. And this baby continues to exist very active, more than than I remember with Cee, particularly making large, dramatic movements in the evening hours but also having significant activity bouts throughout the day (and sometimes in the middle of the night, of course).

Because nosotros don't know the sex of this baby, I'm oft asked if I have any predictions on that front. How would I know, I think? I don't experience like I have whatever kind of gut instinct for this kind of matter, and I don't purchase into any of the old wives tails. But if I'grand pushed to make a guess, I gauge that this baby is a boy. And when I ask myself why that is, it comes downwardly to this observation about more fetal movements. This baby feels different from Cee, and my brain makes a jump to sex as a possible explanation. And and then I stop, remind myself that I'one thousand perpetuating a total gender stereotype, and feel embarrassed.

1 day, I repeated all of this to a friend as we walked together (complete with an amends for the gender stereotype), with Cee riding her bike within hearing distance. A couple of weeks after, my mom was talking to Cee on the phone and asked her if she thought the baby would be a boy or a girl. Cee answered in what seemed similar a verbatim copy of my ain explanation: "Well, Mom thinks that it's a boy, considering the baby moves around a lot within of her, and I didn't motion very much." Yikes. From now on, I'thou keeping my mouth shut. And for the record, Cee is really hoping for a little sister.

All of this left me wondering if fetal movements can actually predict anything about the baby, whether sex or temperament, in postnatal life. I happened to be respective with Jena Pincott, writer of Practice Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?, a few weeks ago, and I asked her if she knew of any inquiry on this. She wrote back, "As for 'in utero' forecasts, my prediction is that your 2015 is going to exist very, very busy!" and sent me a few research manufactures. I dug around and institute quite a few more studies of this question. Finally, I could stop speculating and start talking science! Here's what I found:

How is this question studied?

Well-nigh studies use ultrasound or a Doppler transducer placed on the female parent'southward belly to measure out fetal movements. Most are conducted over a menstruation of about an hour, during which the moms are asked to residuum, and the best studies take several of these measurements over the course of the pregnancy. Studies of postnatal temperament then use standardized behavioral observations or questionnaires to depict aspects of the baby'south beliefs.

Is information technology true that some fetuses are more agile than others?

I wondered if my perception that I was carrying a more active fetus is this pregnancy was really true or if it was influenced by other factors? Women in their first pregnancy commonly notice fetal movements a few weeks later than those in subsequent pregnancies, but it isn't clear if number of pregnancies affects detection of fetal movements later in gestation.^four,v Other factors, like position of the placenta and maternal body weight, may play a role.^6,five Although these may add variation to perceptions of fetal motility, studies using objective measures of fetal movements (like ultrasound or Doppler transducers) do consistently find that some fetuses are more active than others. That is, when researchers mensurate fetal activity at several time points during pregnancy, they find that fetuses that are very active at one fourth dimension betoken go along to be very active at later time points.^3,vii–9 However, I recognize that I've personally only felt fetal movements in ii pregnancies, and my perception of these movements is probably non entirely objective.

Can fetal activity help united states of america to predict a babe'southward sex?

Most studies accept found that fetal movements aren't a reliable predictor of infant sex. For example, two longitudinal studies (measuring fetal activity at several time points during pregnancy), i conducted in both Maryland and Peru and the other from kingdom of the netherlands, found no difference in fetal activity patterns between males and females.^1,2 As I'd suspected, basing my prediction about my baby'south sexual activity on fetal activity was non prove-based. It is an understandable error, all the same, because studies have establish that, on average, boys are more agile than girls in toddlerhood. For example, this study found no difference in activeness level between male and female person fetuses or as newborns but did find that boys were more active at 1 twelvemonth of age and tended to exist more than agile at two years.³ However, this difference doesn't seem to trace back to fetal life and may exist shaped at least in part by cultural expectations.

Can fetal activity predict a baby's temperament?

Yep! All of those kicks at my uterus may really accept a story to tell nigh the babe inside of me. A link between fetal action and postnatal temperament has been observed in multiple studies. Here are a few of the most interesting ones:

• More fetal movements might mean that a baby will cry more. A U.K. written report asked pregnant moms to keep one-hour diaries of fetal movements, classifying each one as weak or potent, in the morn and evening for three days at 37 weeks of pregnancy. The moms then completed 24-hr diaries of their babies' behavior at 1, half dozen, and 12 weeks postpartum. Strong fetal movements didn't correlate to later baby beliefs, but the number of weak movements did. Fetuses that had more of those weak movements in pregnancy (versus those that had fewer weak movements) ended up fussing and crying more in infancy. On the bright side, fetal movements weren't correlated to sleeping patterns or feeding behavior.¹⁰

• More fetal movements might signal that a baby is more than likely to be more than active, unadaptable, and unpredictable. Dr. Janet DiPietro of Johns Hopkins has been studying fetal evolution for more than than twenty years, including several studies of this question of what fetal activity tin tell us about our children before their birth. One of the first, published in 1996, establish that more active fetuses became babies that were "more difficult, unpredictable, unadaptable, and active," based on maternal questionnaires at 3 and half dozen months of age.

• Babies that move more in pregnancy might be less easily frustrated at 1 year and more than independent at 2 years. Another written report from Janet DiPietro's lab included behavioral assessments at one and 2 years of age. In one exam, the i-twelvemonth-quondam babies watched as a fun-looking toy was placed behind a Plexiglass barrier, out of their reach, and the researchers noted how distressed they were past this prepare-upward (banging on the drinking glass, etc. vs. moving on to something else). In some other, the babies were simply strapped into a motorcar seat, a familiar scenario that most of us know tin produce frustration in a babe. At age 2, the children were observed playing in their homes while the mothers were instructed to sit shut past but to act also busy to interact with their toddlers. There was a correlation between having more fetal activity and being less upset most the ane-year-quondam tests and playing more independently of mom at age 2. There was also an interesting association with sex in this study. At age one, boys who were more than active in utero were also more than agile toddlers; however, girls who were more agile in utero were the opposite – less active as toddlers.

I think this inquiry is actually interesting, only I likewise am careful to non try to utilise information technology likewise literally to this child that I haven't yet had a chance to meet. These studies are specifically trying to split up out fetal movements from many other sources of variation. They await at many babies and utilise mathematical models to identify patterns in the grouping, but they actually can't tell us anything near our ain particular babies. And I desire to be careful not to project my expectations near temperament on my baby or for this to affect how I treat him or her. I'll do my all-time to allow my baby tell me who he or she is. But in the concurrently, it is fun to feel those kicks and wonder about this kid. And it doesn't injure to be mentally prepared for a babe that might weep a little more than boilerplate.

While perusing the inquiry on fetal movements, I besides learned a few other fun facts:

• It's normal to feel stronger fetal movements in the evening hours. In one report, moms reported feeling an average of 4 strong movements per hour in the morning and 12 per hour in the evening.¹⁰

• Fetuses that were observed to exist sucking their right thumb during ultrasounds were more than likely to be right-handed at 10-12 years of age.¹¹

• Maternal cortisol levels during pregnancy were associated with more than fetal movements and greater amplitude of movements during the third trimester.¹² (But don't stress nigh this! I'm non. See above for my cautions about applying this research directly to our own pregnancies.)

• When meaning moms participated in a guided imagery relaxation exercise, which resulted in physiological signs of relaxation in the moms (lower heart rate, respiration charge per unit, and skin conductance), fetal movements also decreased.¹³

Did you notice whatsoever correlations between fetal action and your children's temperament? We've talked about the data, and anecdotes are welcome!

UPDATE: Want to learn the sexual activity of our baby? And if any of these predictions about temperament panned out? Read my posts introducing our new baby and describing the start few months of {his or her} life hither. Hint: Science is crawly, but information technology tin't predict everything!

References:

1. Hijazi, Z. R. & East, C. E. Factors affecting maternal perception of fetal movement. Obstet. Gynecol. Surv. 64, 489–497; quiz 499 (2009).
2. Gillieson, Grand., Dunlap, H., Nair, R. & Pilon, M. Placental site, parity, and date of quickening. Obstet. Gynecol. 64, 44–45 (1984).
3. Tuffnell, D. J., Cartmill, R. S. & Lilford, R. J. Fetal movements; factors affecting their perception. Eur. J. Obstet. Gynecol. Reprod. Biol. 39, 165–167 (1991).
4. DiPietro, J. A. et al. What does fetal move predict about behavior during the starting time 2 years of life? Dev. Psychobiol. 40, 358–371 (2002).
5. DiPietro, J. A., Hodgson, D. M., Costigan, Thou. A., Hilton, S. C. & Johnson, T. R. Fetal neurobehavioral evolution. Child Dev. 67, 2553–2567 (1996).
6. Groome, Fifty. J. et al. Spontaneous motor activity in the perinatal infant before and later on birth: stability in private differences. Dev. Psychobiol. 35, 15–24 (1999).
7. Eaton, W. O. & Saudino, Thou. J. Prenatal action level equally a temperament dimension? Individual differences and developmental functions in fetal movement. Baby Behav. Dev. 15, 57–lxx (1992).
8. DiPietro, J. A. et al. Fetal neurobehavioral development: a tale of ii cities. Dev. Psychol. 40, 445–456 (2004).
9. Robles de Medina, P. Yard., Visser, M. H. A., Huizink, A. C., Buitelaar, J. Grand. & Mulder, E. J. H. Fetal behaviour does not differ between boys and girls. Early Hum. Dev. 73, 17–26 (2003).
10. St James-Roberts, I. & Menon-Johansson, P. Predicting baby crying from fetal movement data: an exploratory report. Early Hum. Dev. 54, 55–62 (1999).
11. Hepper, P. G., Wells, D. L. & Lynch, C. Prenatal thumb sucking is related to postnatal handedness. Neuropsychologia 43, 313–315 (2005).
12. DiPietro, J. A., Kivlighan, K. T., Costigan, K. A. & Laudenslager, M. L. Fetal motor activeness and maternal cortisol. Dev. Psychobiol. 51, 505–512 (2009).
13. DiPietro, J. A., Costigan, Chiliad. A., Nelson, P., Gurewitsch, E. D. & Laudenslager, Thou. L. Fetal responses to induced maternal relaxation during pregnancy. Biol. Psychol. 77, 11–nineteen (2008).

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Source: https://scienceofmom.com/2014/10/30/can-fetal-movements-tell-us-anything-about-a-babys-temperament/

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