Belly Mapping Your Baby’s Position During Pregnancy

Through Belly Mapping, you can get a great sense of your baby’s position and get acquainted with what’s happening in your body during pregnancy. We explore the process with Myla Flores – a Babu Village doula, childbirth educator and lactation counselor, and Seevon, a mom-to-be who’s about 32 weeks pregnant. 

There are a couple of great reasons to Belly Map

1. Get a sense of what’s going on in your body.
Sometimes, pregnancy can be very separate from us. The experience can be slightly disconnected for parents. Other times you can kind of tune in, tap in, check in, see what’s going on with your baby – and, it’s a great way to get informed about your own body and baby.

2. Get a sense of your baby’s position.
By exploring your own belly, you can find out if your baby is in a great position for birth. A great position for birth is with the baby’s head down and forward. We want the baby facing with the back of the head towards the front of the body. In that way the smallest part of the head is presenting and that’s ideal for birth, as opposed to the larger presentation, which would be a little more difficult and take a little longer. We want your baby to be set up for optimal fetal positioning.

3. Support maternal balance
In the chance that your baby could use a little support in finding optimal fetal positioning, you can enhance that process by taking some action and giving maternal balance where the baby can respond to it.

The Benefits of Belly Mapping & Learning the Position of Your Baby

Palpating Your Belly
To palpate your belly, gently press on yourself and feel around. Your baby is cushioned within the amniotic fluid and there’s soft tissue all around. So, you can go ahead and palpate at a pressure that feels comfortable to you and explore to find your baby’s position.   

Finding the Firm and Soft Areas
Get warm and cozy with your baby and see if you can feel anything. Do you feel a hard bump of some kind? As you can continue to palpate around you might notice an area that is firm, and an area that is soft. You can trace exactly what you’re doing. Where do you feel more baby? On which side? 

Quadrants of the Belly 
With belly mapping we have the quadrants of the belly. We think of it as the four corners. And, from our outside view we begin to determine the simple pieces of the puzzle that we can then put together later. Where you feel the bulk of the baby? As you feel around, have you noticed an area that’s firmer than others? Have you noticed an area that’s softer than others? Has your baby kicked?

Learn Your Baby’s Position and How it Changes
Babies are moving throughout the day. Just because we find ourselves noticing a position this morning, that position can totally be different in the evening. It’s really great to have a sense of your baby. At 32 weeks, your baby’s going to be doing all kinds of wonderful stuff. Often times at 34 weeks your baby has generally found the position that it might want to continue to stay in throughout the remainder of pregnancy. But there’s obviously still movement. You can still integrate maternal balance to support changes, but it’s a general statistic that your baby has found his/her position. On the other hand, Seevon’s baby (at 32 weeks), maybe doing lots of acrobats, being in one position this morning and a different one tonight. 

Learn to Trace Your Baby’s Body
Another sensation you may feel is movement that’s a little softer than kicks, like fluttering or something a little less powerful than a kick. Do you feel the strongest kicks on one side? Any big limbs? When you trace it, does it feel like it connects to a bump like a knee? Sometimes when your tracing it feels oval, although sometimes when you tracing it’s more like a pokey feeling and sometimes it seems like it connects into another body part. Check the zones for kicks, firmness and soft areas to see where your baby’s position might be.

How to Tell Your Baby’s Butt From Its Head
You might be feeling different sensations as you continue mapping your baby. You may feel moments where you can kind-of feel the head. Sometimes, you can trace the bump that you feel and you can almost feel both sides of the head. Sometimes, when people are exploring this, they’re not sure whether they’re feeling the head or the butt, which is also spherical. One tip is that when you move the head, if you have a little movement, the head moves on it’s own. Versus, if you were to move the butt, the whole body moves with it. It’s one way to help you know if your baby is in breech position.

Have a Conversation With Your Provider
Talk with your doctor or midwife and get a sense of your baby’s position. Sometimes you’ll get a test or a report from the ultrasound and it’s not a conversation exchange. Knowing the position of your baby can be really helpful.

Is Your Baby Facing Forward/Posterior, or To The Back/Anterior?
Other sensations you might be feeling if your baby is in different positions: If your baby is horizontal, across the belly, you might be feeling bumps on both sides, with soft areas on the top and bottom. If your baby is posterior – head down, but facing forward – maybe you’d be feeling the fluttery feelings right in the front, feeling kicks on both sides as the baby rotates back-and-forth. This is still a posterior position because the occipital, the back of the baby’s head, is posterior of the mother’s body, facing front. You want to favor the anterior position – facing back. There are many ways to support that. Rebozo Manteada – belly sifting can help remind the baby of gravity.

The Difference Between Flutters and Kicks
Parents may be feeling different sensations. Depending baby on baby’s position, you might feel that fluttery feeling closer to the front. Keep in mind that flutters are different from kicks. Kicks are going to be your strongest, most powerful thing. A little hand movement still may feel strong but not as powerful as a kick. Your baby is moving throughout the day. 

Breech Position
If the baby were in breech position, one may feel the kicks really strong and powerful at the bottom, differentiating between a fluttery feeling and a powerful kick. So again, sometimes you can find where you feel the bump and if you move it more of the baby moves, versus a head where if you feel a bump and you move it, just the head would move. That’s another thing you might notice as you’re palpating your body, belly mapping and figuring out the baby’s position. When you know early on, you can activate different ways to add balance to the maternal body that would promote the baby’s optimal fetal positioning.

Questions to Ask Your Doctor or Midwife
Engage with your provider when you have a scan, a biophysical profile, anytime you have an ultrasound to your body. You can ask, “What position is my baby in?” “Which side is the spine on?” “Is the head down?” Engage in that conversation because sometimes there are people who don’t find out their baby’s in a breech position till late in pregnancy. 

You can see why belly mapping can be very useful so that you can get a sense of what your baby’s up to in the belly.

Find Myla Flores, LCCE, CD(DONA), CLC and other birthing experts at Babu: Meet Babu, a diverse community of curated service providers supporting expecting parents with everything they need, from conception to the first play date. Visit: babuvillage.com