How on earth do you tell the baby's position?

[GoestoShow]

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Edited by GoestoShow - 1/4/11 at 8:52am

[MyLittleWarrior]

I kind of pay attention to where I feel movement. I've been getting tiny little bumps just above my pubic bone, nice big kicks over under my left ribs, and big swooshing movements or bulges under my right ribs. So I feel like she is head down with her back to my right side, her tush up under my right ribs, and her feet/knees to the left. I can never feel her with my hands if I am sitting or standing. If I lay almost flat on my back and really relax I can usually palpate her tush over on the right (feels like a big bulge) and the smooth firmness of her back down the right side of my tummy. The left side of my tummy either feels emptier, or if she's moving or stretching I can feel very little bulges that I assume to be knees or feet. Usually I can also feel her head right above my pubic bone. I take my thumb and fingers of one hand in a C shape and right above my pubic bone but under the tummy bump if I press in (kind of a lot, more than you might think you should have to) I can feel a hard round ball that is her head. I can also feel her head inside if I really try, but she's still a little high and hard to reach. I'm 39 weeks now, but I've been able to feel a lot of this (not so much her head, but definitely her tush) since about 26 weeks or so.

HTH!

[MyLittleWarrior]

Another thought, if you have an anterior placenta that can make palpating position a lot more difficult, as well as feeling the placement of kicks.

[GoestoShow]

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Edited by GoestoShow - 1/4/11 at 8:52am

[treespeak]

I think a lot depends on the particular babe's position, where the placenta lies, and also the mum's build. DS was pretty easy to peg: I could feel a squishy round bum on the right side, his feet pushed up against my left ribs--you could see a little heel jabbing out of my skin on occasion. Hands made little scratchy movements in the low left pubic region. He didn't move around much--so I could feel him in this position for the last month.

[spinningbabies]

Belly Mapping

Dear Goestoshow,
I hope I can shed some light on Belly Mapping for you. How many weeks are you? Belly Mapping works best after 30 weeks gestation and most often after 36 weeks. Its not that Optimal Fetal Positioning isn't important before that, it is. But many women can't differentiate baby parts before the third trimester.
Lay down on your back and bend your knees above you so that your feet are flat on the floor or mattress.

Take a few deep breaths and give your belly a moment to soften. Avoid trying to feel your baby's position during a Braxton-Hicks contraction. Just wait till its over a bit.
Feel with the pads of your fingers.
Did your doctor or midwife tell you if your baby's head is down?
Then the lower bumps will be hands and the higher bumps will be feet- that is if they are correct, which they usually are, but not always.

Ok, think of your abdomen as being in four quadrants, four pieces of pie, so to speak.
Now we ask whats in the top half of the pie? What's in the bottom half? Whats on the left side of you? And what's on the right side of you?

So, on top, near the top of your womb (the fundus) you might feel small parts bumps and cylinders...feet and legs. You may feel a large lump, it may even feel a bit like a ball, but often as a large lump that presses outward occasionally.

What's on the bottom? To feel the head, you would have to angle your finger tips deep into your skin, deeper than your pubic bone, most likely. Do you feel a ball there? That's likely the head. Anothe rimportant finding would be whether you could feel little bumps that move...the hands. Its rare to feel a cylinder right at your pubic bone (where your bladder rises to when full). Some women feel the head on their bladder or at the joint of the pubic bone pressing and or grinding (indicating a forehead there).

What's on the sides? Is one side firmer than the other? Is one side bumpy or are both sides kinda bumpy?

Now that you have isolated the four quadrants you can return to Belly Mapping and check for your baby's kick map, half way down the article.
http://spinningbabies.com/baby-positions/belly-mapping

If you feel bumps moving (frequently but not constantly) in all four quadrants and have a hard time identifying a large firm object along one side or the other you may have a posterior baby. Especially if you feel the bumps of little hands wiggling near your bladder on a daily basis. Especially if on both sides of the dividing line.

If your baby is sideways, oblique or you have an anterior placenta this level of Belly Mapping won't be enough. Fluffy or highly padded women may have trouble feeling their own baby's position.

Get a doll and put the doll's head where you were told by the midwife or doctor that the head was at and rotate the doll, based on your recall of how infants move.

I hope this helps.

[Fullmoon]

I could never tell either even with help and belly mapping. I had two ultrasounds earlier on, I would say around 25 weeks and then again at 28wks. The first time he was head down and the second time head up, and I could never tell the difference. It wasn't until 35+ weeks that I was able to *estimate* his position, because he was much larger and I could run my hand about my belly scoping him out. I was never positive of his position, but I assumed he was head down because 1) I felt hiccups near my left hip, and 2) it felt like one of his legs as scrunched up near the top of my belly, moving to the side, where I also felt jabbing in my ribs sometimes. Since I felt the hiccups down low and jabs to the rib, I figured then he was head down, and on his side, since it felt like the outer regions of his leg. I could never feel the head, the body, just always that 1 leg, if it was even a leg. LOL.

[Kidzaplenty]

[GoestoShow]

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Edited by GoestoShow - 1/4/11 at 8:52am

[Astraia]

I couldn't make heads or tails of it - because I kept second guessing myself- until my MW showed me where everything was and confirmed what I'd been thinking but wasn't sure enough to REALLY think it, if that makes any sense.

Some of it I didn't figure out until after she was born. Like, it never occurred to me that she might be posterior, which is why it was so hard to find her back. And I'd feel things sliding across the front and sides of my belly, but couldn't tell what (I had an anterior placenta). They were small and round but didn't fit the description of feet or hands that I'd heard. It was only later that I realized they were knees.

This kid is head down. I know because nothing at the top of my belly feels like a head, haha. His bum is more of a lumpy oval shape, not the near-perfect roundness of a head. There are also thighs attached to it- I feel cylinder shapes at my center-belly and his feet poking around on my side. He switches from the left to the right side pretty regularly, so I'm getting good at determining where his back is. Sometimes it's confusing because he pushes so hard with his feet (rarely kicks) that his bum sticks out, so I've got something jabbing at me from both sides!

I can't find his head. I've been poking aruond, but it is thoroughly hidden. I assume engaged because he's SO low right now, ugh.

[Channelle]

Originally Posted by GoestoShow

0 weeks!

I'm not pregnant. I just recall spending literally hours at, of all places, Spinning Babies and looking at their belly mapping and just not being able to figure it out at all.

I couldn't make heads or tails of it until I got pregnant and past 30 weeks, then...it's a bit easier to tell! I have a large lump up high on one side that sometimes rises up real high and is really hard-that has to be the bum, I feel hiccups down low, I feel continual hard "hits" up high usually in around the same place by the same ribs (ouch!) that are kicks, and I feel softer more fluttery and not as often "hits" down low on the "diagonal" side of the hard bum lump that are little jabs from hands! So I can map where she is pretty easy now!

[alton]

All I could seem to work out was that the baby had two heads and about seven legs

[AlexisT]

I could never work it out. But I carry my weight in my middle, so it was like a giant pad over the baby. The OBs and midwives could never work out position without portable u/s. I think they had some kind of idea, but they weren't confident enough to go on that alone.

This won't be true for most women, but i think it's important to know that it does happen sometimes.