blow to the abdomen?

[shanniesue2]

I already asked this question in one place, but decided to ask it here, too.

How hard does a blow to the abdomen have to be to be dangerous?

I'm 29w pregnant, and today,when we let our dogs in the house, one of the dogs got overly excited about one of our cats and started chasing him... in the process of the chase, my dog (about 50 pounds) jumped on me while I was sitting in a chair and rebounded off my belly with his 2 front paws. I'm just wondering if this blow could have been hard enough to cause damage and if so, what kinds of signs should I look for? I feel okay right now, but I'm just not sure if I need to be worried about it.

[MsBlack]

I know a mom who similarly suffered a blow to her abdomen at about the same point in pregnancy. She felt ok afterward tho bruised, and baby seemed ok (mw checked heart tones and mom observed normal movement continuing). At birth, they discovered what had most likely been a partial placental abruption from that blow--when water broke, part of what emerged was very dark old blood clots. However, baby was fine--the abruption was not enough to impair placental functioning (not enough to matter, anyway) and the rest of the placenta carried on just fine.

I would pay attention to baby's movements for a few days. I my self would also want to hear baby's heart soon, to verify that all is well.

Should also say that at about 35 wks I went body surfing in the Pacific...got slammed belly first into the sand. Urph! took my breath away, and it hurt quite a bit. Baby and I were both fine, no abruption nor any other issue--tho of course I dragged myself out of the water and stayed there, after that!

Between your belly tissue and fat and muscle; and uterine muscle and aminotic fluid, there really is quite a lot of shock absorbing ability for a pregnancy.

[shanniesue2]

thanks for the response.... My next regularly scheduled MW appointment is Tuesday, so we'll listen for the heart beat then. I haven't felt much change in movement... however, my back has been hurting more than usual since it happened. But that may because I've been laying around today and not been very active?

[Artichokie]

This exact thing happened to me at 17 weeks along, minus the cat part. And my dog is 90 lbs. She body slammed me with her two front paws. I was standing at the time and it knocked all of the wind out of me.


I called the midwife, who told me that I was worrying for nothing, but offered me an u/s to check to make sure the placenta was still attached properly and the baby was still looking okay. As a newly pregnant worried mama, I took her up on it, and everything looked fine. She said to let her know if there was any bleeding. There wasn't. FWIW, I had an anterior low lying placenta, so it sustained a direct hit from the dog.

I'm 39.6 w along now, and so far I haven't had any indication of any problem.

When it happened, I called my sister slightly hysterically, and she said that at 7 mo along, an umbrella opened up into her abdomen (you know how they shoot open if you hit the button) so hard that it left a huge bruise. No adverse effects occurred and she had a normal pregnancy and delivery.

My understanding is that if you were to have any placenta issues from it, you would most likely have some contractions.

[Jane]

I've heard the adage that "if it doesn't bruise..." it'll probably be okay - it has to be hard enough to break some capillaries to do anything in the inside. However, since many people don't bruise until the next day and there's such a wide variation in bruising...I think it's good to do some checks at the time.
One is your vital signs - are there any signs or symptoms that you are losing blood - BP, pulse, pain level, tenderness, swelling, etc?
Two is the baby - has his blood supply been compromised? If it has ceased - ie, a huge bleed, there would be no hearbeat and no movement. If it is compromised, the baby will not move to conserve energy (ever had the flu? You know how you can just lay there not moving for HOURS, not bored, not asleep, just not MOVING, well babies can do that when they are not getting enough from their placenta). Typical movement is at least 20 movements in 20 minutes during the baby's most active time every day. Visible on the monitor is variability, changes in the heart rate from beat to beat. Visually, on a strip, this is a jagged line - jaggedy, but not to jaggedy. I know of no way to check this without hearing the baby's heartbeat. Custom is that you have to have a machine to write it down, and it can't be done with a fetoscope, but that's a debatable issue.
If you were to go to the hospital, they would typically measure your vital signs and physical symptoms and put you on the monitor for a while. An ultrasound wouldn't neccesarily help - pockets of blood aren't really visible on ultrasound until they clot off - in weeks. Best practice is to monitor you both if there is a concern. The most common reason women get this monitoring is after car accidents.

[yarngoddess]

During my many years of being a pregnant mama, I too have had my fair share of accidents. Hard not too with such a huge change in our bodies, and our Feet, for crying out loud!!! So, what you SHOULD look out for

*Any significant change in baby's movement- of course for a little while RIGHT after baby will be a little different.

*Contractions- real painful contractions. Ask your MW how many contractions you can have with out worry, and not braxton hicks. My limit until 36 weeks was 6 an hour.

*Bleeding.

*Pain that is strong enough to stop you in your tracks- no matter where it is.

And listen to your body. If you have that "Oh, NO" feeling, then listen- many a women has gone to Labor and Delivery for a Non stress test ( they monitor outside your belly with belts for contractions and heart rate on baby)
And don't be ashamed to tell them that you are scared and that thats why you are there. Be firm, and get the reassurance that you need.

Hugs!