Javascript required
Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer
Home / The Difference Between a Baby Dropping and Not Dropping

The Difference Between a Baby Dropping and Not Dropping

Doctor using stethoscope on pregnant patients stomach

Caiaimage / Agnieszka Wozniak / Getty Images

The vocabulary of childbirth can seem a flake foreign—and even a petty vehement: Mucus plug. Waters breaking. Crowning. Cutting the cord. The term "baby dropping" falls into this category, equally it may bring to mind an image of a newborn falling headfirst from the birth canal. Of course, that's non at all what happens when a baby drops, although this outcome does tend to signal the onset of labor and commitment.

If you're pregnant and have been told your baby has dropped (which sometimes is called lightening) or you lot've heard of this miracle and wonder what it really ways, read on to learn precisely what happens and why, besides as what to wait when your own little 1 drops.

Getting Into Position

A infant's position in the womb is defined as being at a item fetal station—a measurement of where he is in relation to certain areas of the pelvis. Each fetal station is defined in negative or positive numbers that stand for to the baby'due south position in the nascency canal.

The difference betwixt numbers is equivalent to centimeters—in other words, moving from +1 to +2 ways moving about a centimeter. Doctors and midwives usually used a fetal station calibration containing eleven specific positions. Here are five of them:

  • -five station: The infant is "floating" in the womb—able to move freely and fifty-fifty flip from heads-up to heads-down and vice-versa.
  • -3 station: The babe has settled into a heads-downwardly position—usually within weeks 32 to 36 (although information technology can happen as late as but as labor is starting time)—with the top of the head just above the pelvic bone.
  • 0 station: The infant has descended to the betoken that the head has reached the lesser of the pelvis. This is the bespeak at which the babe is said to take dropped and is fully engaged.
  • +3 station: The indicate in labor at which the baby's caput is showtime to emerge from the nascence canal.
  • +5 station: The baby'due south head is crowning, meaning it'south visible.

It's at 0 station when a infant's caput is fully engaged in the pelvis, that the baby is said to have dropped. You tin't predict when this will happen, although if this is your beginning pregnancy lightening probably will occur two to four weeks before y'all go into labor.

If it'due south not your first pregnancy, your infant may wait until labor begins to start his descent into the birth canal.

What Information technology Feels Like

The word "drop" is kind of misleading: It suggests a sudden downward movement, but in fact a baby dropping typically is a gradual process. It's unlikely you lot'll experience your babe drop, but you will notice any or all of various signs that it has happened. These include:

  • Easier animate: When a infant moves downward, it creates more than room for the lungs to expand, and then you may discover that you can breathe more than freely.
  • Pressure level on your pelvis: When the baby drops, his head will rest more heavily on top of the cervix and will have up more than space in the lower part of the nascency canal. It may experience every bit if in that location'southward a bowling basin between your legs and even cause you to walk oddly.
  • The need to pee more often: The pressure of the infant's head in the pelvis can affect the bladder, causing you to experience as if y'all need to urinate a lot.
  • The ability to eat more at one sitting: While high up in your uterus your baby crowded your stomach, and so you may have noticed that you felt total pretty quickly. When your baby drops there volition be more room for your stomach to fill upwards with food.
  • Less heartburn: Pressure on the tummy also causes a common symptom in pregnancy—heartburn. Minus the pressure, you may discover you're less likely to become heartburn (if that'southward been an issue for you).
  • Pelvic pain: This is caused past pressure level on a lot of ligaments in the pelvis.
  • Increased discharge: The weight of the baby on the cervix may cause more mucus to be expelled from the vagina. This is sometimes experienced as a gob of discharge chosen the fungus plug.
  • Your belly hangs lower: It's often very easy to tell if a baby has dropped: As well visibly looking as if you're carrying lower, you lot may detect that in that location'southward more than space between your breasts and the superlative of your abdomen.
  • More than Braxton-Hicks contractions: These may exist stimulated by the force per unit area of the infant'southward head on the cervix.
  • Increased pain in the pelvis: This only is due to the shift in pressure level on ligaments and nerves in the lower pelvis.

If Your Baby Doesn't Drop

Don't worry—he will. Again, it could happen several weeks before you get into labor or not until labor begins. If you lot become into labor before lightening occurs y'all may have a longer menstruum of labor since information technology will take some time for your body to move your baby into position.

There are some things you can exercise to endeavor to help your baby to drop. But, bank check with your doctor before you trying annihilation new.

Hither are some things to endeavor with your medico's permission.

  • Walking: Being upright and moving will bring about the combination of gravity and the gentle rocking of the baby in your uterus which tin help atomic number 82 to dropping
  • Squats: These may widen your pelvis so that your baby can go engaged there. Exercise squats while holding onto a sturdy chair since your balance may exist a bit off.
  • Pelvic opening exercise: Sit down with your legs open wide and lean forwards to movement the weight from your belly toward your pelvis. Don't fold your torso over your legs or go further than your range of motion.

Finally, trust that your body knows what to do when information technology comes to preparing for childbirth.

No ii pregnancies are the same, then rather than become concerned if you think your baby should have dropped and hasn't based on generalities, talk to your obstetrician or midwife for reassurance.

Thanks for your feedback!

Verywell Family uses merely high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more than about how we fact-bank check and proceed our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Additional Reading

The Difference Between a Baby Dropping and Not Dropping

Source: https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-does-it-mean-when-your-baby-drops-2759074