My girl is 7 months pregnant and would like to know how do you know when the baby drops?
Answer:
It's when the baby shifts to prepare for delivery and is not the same thing as the water breaking.
It's when the stomach looks lower on her pelvic because the baby has lowered into the birthing position
The baby shifts down farthing into the pelvic area. It is only a stage that happens in order for the body to prepare for birth. The water breaking is completely different. The baby can change positions off and on for about a month before birth, give or take a little bit. Our baby dropped about three weeks before she was born. It is not something you really notice happening until one day you look and see her belly is lower and she is having to go to the bathroom about every half hour. If you are having a hard time keeping up with the terms there are a lot of websites to check out. You will hear a lot of new , and nasty sounding, terms in the next few months before the baby is born. Its good to check out whats going to happen.
When the baby's head moves low into the birth canal ready for labour. She would most probably be able to feel the head in her groin area, and would look lower in the belly. Before the baby drops it's usually positioned right up near the boobs,and when it drops, it obviously looks a lot lower, and further down from the boobs, if that makes sense. The water breaking has nothng to do with it, but the babies head, when it's low eventually triggers labour. The waters sometimes don't break until right before birth, even though she may have been in active labour for hours and hours.
Don't worry, hon! It's nothing bad!! When the baby 'drops', this simply means that baby is getting into position for birth. This usually happens in about the last month of pregnancy: baby's head falls down into her pelvis in preparation for birth.
Usually when this happens, she will feel a lot of pressure relief.by this, I mean she will be able to breathe much easier, there is more room to eat, etc, because baby won't be pushing up into her chest cavity so much...however, she may then have lower problems, like constipation because there is a lot more pressure on the bowel and lower organs. You will probably see a very noticeable difference in how her tummy looks. Right now it probably looks like the bump starts just under her breasts...when baby drops (depending how tall she is!) there may be quite a few inches between her breasts and the top of her baby bump.
Oh, good luck and congratulations!! ;)
I used to be married and what I will describe is from what I saw and learned when our son was born. Up intil the 7th or 8th month, the fetus develops in a "head up" position, lying on its back so to speak and is supported by the uterus relatively high in her body. If you have looked at an ultrasound image, this is very clear. In preparation for delivery, the baby has to shift to a "head down" position so the head comes out first. This shift if what is referred to as dropping. The woman will know immediately when this process happens, believe me. The shape of her abdomen will change and she will know this immediately when it is happening. She will walk differently as her center of gravity drops as the baby shifts from higher in her body to lower. This is when she will start having an irresitable urge to urinate almost all of the time since in this posotion, the head of the baby directly presses on her bladder and also, when sitting, she will want to splay her legs outwards. It will be almost impossible for her to sit with her knees together because of the downward pressure and the size of the baby's head low in her uterus between her legs. My wife claimed ony day, that she felt like she was waddling instead of simply walking as before when her baby dropped and she went to the bathroom every 5 minutes (it seemed). At this point (sometimes much earlier), some women become extremely sexual (Is it OK to say horny here?) also because of the pressure on her internals. (My wife did, and she and I loved it!) She has internal organs which respond to pressure just as you have externals which respond to touch. If you do engage, and I suggest you do, with her on her hands and knees works best with you behind. Don't forget to use some manual stimulation on her sweet spots in addition. Or, if she is comfortable in the position, she can be on top. Being on top does not work well after the baby drops because of the different placement of the uterus in her body. No, regular sexual activity will NOT hurt the baby. Sex while pregnant hurting the baby is an old wive's tale and sex does not hasten labor either. This shift is a good thing and says the baby will be coming relatively soon, a few weeks, days, or maybe even as short as hours. Water breaking is the rupture of the amniotic sac which encloses the fetus within the uterus and contains amniotic fluid, the cushion for the baby. The baby "floats" in the amniotic fluid contained in the amniotic sac. The breaking of this indicates labor is iminent, if not already started. Contraactions may or may not start at this point, but either way, once the amniotic sac breaks, the baby is now on the way and has to come out of her body to survive in a relatively short period of time, by either natural delivery or ceasarian section, surgery. Without the fluid, the baby is no longer cushioned, so the woman must take care to avoid bumps and shocks which would be directly transmitted to the baby in her body. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I am not so sure my wife did. Labor involves pain, a lot of pain. Labor is an hours long process of change in her body as it changes to accomodate delivery, and this change is quite painful for her. Her interanals are being moved around as the uterus starts forcing the baby out into the birth canal, the vagina, and the body is not exactly built for the changes to happen so rapidly, nor prepared for the size of the baby, so it HURTS when they happen. The moracle is that the internals may experience pain, but for the most part, no permanent damage occurs. The vagina is designed to expand and it does (which is why your penis size does not matter all that much. You are nothing compared to the size of the head of a baby), but pain is involved. In retrospect, it was the most life changing experience of both of our lives.
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