Count the Kicks and Help Your Baby

Pregnancy is a glowing time for most women once the period of morning sickness stops and the rosy effects of motherhood take over. January is the National Birth Defects Month and the theme dictated by the National Center for Birth Defect Prevention Network is “Getting Fit for Pregnancy.” With the new 2009 theme in mind, researchers have found a natural way at home to monitor your baby’s health while still inside the womb: by counting the kicks once the baby is active enough to be felt from the outside.

Kick counting is a system of bonding with your baby while you look out for his or her well-being within the womb. With one in every 150 pregnancies ending in stillbirth, 26,000 stillbirths every year within the second and third trimester, and about 70 mothers giving birth to stillborn babies every day, kick counting sounds better by the second. The BabyKick Alliance is working around the clock to spread stillbirth prevention by enacting the kick counting method across the country.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends counting kicks as a good method to ensure the health of your baby. Hospitals and doctor’s offices offer various screening tests during pregnancies in order to rule out any birth defects, catch specific conditions, or find any unnatural occurrences that may be taking place inside the womb. However, beyond the tests and multiple false-alarm visits to the doctor, kick counting is a physician-approved way to keep your mind and your family at ease.

Mothers have always been able to tell when their babies are doing well in utero. You can call it a woman’s intuition, but movement has always been the main indicator of general well-being. Whether it’s kicking, punching, rolling, doing somersaults, or whatever else babies do while developing in the womb, experts say the best way to monitor your baby’s activity is to record it daily.

A baby generally starts to “flutter” between 16 and 20 weeks—during the second trimester of the pregnancy—when he or she is developed enough to use its arms and legs. General movement increases in strength and number gradually while the baby is being carried and most mothers notice more movement as night when they are trying to relax or sleep. At 24 weeks—the start of the third trimester—the baby is rolling and stretching a lot and this is when counting kicks should start as recommended by your health care provider.

By tracking a baby’s kicks maternally, women are able to keep their minds at ease and reassure her and her family that chances are any paranoia about the pregnancy is just nerves. Helpful for both low and high risk pregnancies (including mothers with hypertension and diabetes), kick counting may be able to save a stillborn baby’s life. There are different ways to “count the kicks” but the average number advised by the ACOG for a perfectly healthy baby is at least ten movements over a period of two hours. Some people say that most babies will perform over ten movements in less than 30 minutes, but all babies differ and a quick versus slow movement rate doesn’t necessarily signal concern. Providers can ask that mothers contact them or make an appointment if there have not been 10 movements recorded throughout the duration of one hour. However, significant changes in the movement patterns (as long as the mother is consistently tracking the kicks at the same time every day), could be a sign of potential problems with the pregnancy and a doctor should be alerted immediately so further tests can be done and treatment can be administered if needed.

Movements are described by punches, jabs, turns, twists, kicks, rolls, stretches, kicks and swishes but do not include a baby’s hiccups. Supported by medical research, the method of kick counting is a valuable, effective, harmless, simple, and most of all harmless screening at-home technique. Mothers should record the number of movements at the same time everyday starting at 24 weeks until the end of the pregnancy at, before, or even after 36 weeks. Kick counting is also a way for a mother to bond with her unborn child by taking time out of her day to hold her stomach and rely on the healthy movements that signify an intimate communication between mother and child.