Ideally for normal labour, the baby is positioned head-down, facing the mother’s back, with the chin tucked to her chest and the back of the head ready to enter the mother’s pelvis. However, some foetal positions can cause problems for both mother and herself.
What are common positions of normal birth?
The position of a baby in her mother’s uterus is called the presentation of the foetus. Mother’s health provider will carefully assess her baby’s position throughout the last month of her pregnancy to make sure her baby is in the correct position for delivery. The baby moves into position as mother’s body prepares for delivery. In the weeks before her due date, her baby might drop lower in the uterus, which is normally be in a cephalic presentation. Most babies settle into this type of position within the 32nd and 36th weeks of pregnancy.
Why Baby Being Head Down Help with delivery?
When head down baby positions, labour is likely to be easier and possibly quicker because they fit into the curve of mother’s pelvis. This helps in many ways, following:
• There is more pressure on the neck of mother’s cervix, which will widen it and produce the necessary hormones needed during labour.
• Baby moves through the pelvis at an angle and with her being head down makes it easier for mother to push her out.
• When baby reaches the bottom of mother’s pelvis, she will naturally turn her head a little, which means her child’s head is in the widest part of her pelvis. In this position, baby’s head will slip under mother’s pubic bone.
How to find If Baby Is Head Down
It’s important to remember that mostly a baby is very active in the womb and her position might change several times, even while mother is in labour. Although an ultrasound can tell a mother where her baby is located exactly, she can also do belly mapping herself to work this out. It’s not an essential thing to learn or do, but it will leave a mother feeling empowered, which is never a bad thing. If an expectant can feel a lump nearer the top of her belly, push gently on it. There are different head down position baby and signs that baby is head down are as follows:
• If a pregnant woman press gently near her pubic bone and feel something round and hard, it’s her baby’s head. Also, try to wiggle it, and if there are only a few movements, then her child is head down.
• If she feels her baby’s hiccups lower in her belly, then the baby is head down.
• Butterflies down low as well as good old kicks up high is a good sign of a baby is head down.
• If she don’t feel extreme abdominal pain close to her ribs or under them, then the baby is head down.
• Ask one’s partner to listen to her baby’s heart-beat. If the heartbeat is low in her belly, then the baby is head down.
Wrap up
Remember, most of the time, one’s baby is head down. Even in case a mother has a breech baby, it’s not the end of the world. Instead of worrying, one must enjoy the last few weeks of her pregnancy. Chances are she’ll miss it when it’s gone.
