If the kicks change
You will hear men say the baby went quiet and they gave it until morning. Do not be that plan.
Most women start to feel movement somewhere between 16 and 24 weeks. The movements usually get stronger and more frequent as the baby gets bigger. They keep going every day until birth.
They do not decrease or stop as a courtesy because labour is about to start. If someone tells her the baby is resting up for the big day, that line is not the guidance.
From about 28 weeks, the way this baby moves tends to stay the same until birth. Not the same as the neighbour's baby. The same as this one.
Stretch, kick, elbow, roll, hiccup, on and off through the day. The job, for both of you, is to learn when this baby is typically awake and when this baby is typically still.
When you know an awake stretch, she can sit or lie on her side in a quiet room and pay attention to how many movements she feels and how strong they are. Strong movement at the usual times is the sign the page treats as reassuring.
The call is not subtle. From 24 weeks, she calls the midwife, doctor or local maternity hospital immediately if she has not felt the baby move for a few hours while she is awake, if the pattern has changed, or if she simply feels that something is off. Immediately means you do not workshop it over dinner.
You can be the one who finds the number and dials while she lies on her side. Bargaining with the clock is how people lose the window the hospital wants.
Sleep has a rule in the same article, and it is yours to set up even if you are not the one who is pregnant. Going to sleep on her side lowers stillbirth risk, especially in the third trimester, from 28 weeks to birth. On her back, the uterus can press the vena cava and cut blood and nutrients to the baby.
Either side is fine. A pillow between the knees and one at her back makes it possible to stay there. If she wakes on her back, she settles back to sleep on her side.
No lecture. Just the pillows, and a roll.
The rest of the risk page is lifestyle, and it has your name on it too. Not smoking, and not living in someone else's smoke. No alcohol is the safest line, and recreational drugs are never safe in pregnancy.
Quitline is 137 848. The National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline is 1800 250 015. Food and regular gentle to moderate movement help if the pregnancy is uncomplicated, and she should check exercise with the midwife or doctor.
Medicines, including supermarket and herbal ones, get the same check.
Antenatal appointments are where growth is tracked. A baby growing slowly may need more tests. Show up.
Tell them symptoms. You cannot remove every risk. Stillbirth is not always preventable.
You can refuse the casual wait when the kicks change.
Most pregnancies are healthy. This toolkit is not a hex. It is the phone call you would want a mate to make for his own child.
Source: Raising Children Network