More on kick counts

I felt I should say a bit more about kick counts. Moksha's stillbirth is unexplained. My own theory is that a blood clot got into the cord and blocked off circulation. However, no clots were found in the autopsy on the cord. But if this was the case, his death could have easily been prevented by kick counts.

There was also a theory that something as yet unknown to medical research went wrong with the electrical activity in his heart. If this happened, it's possible that nothing could have saved him.

On the Thursday evening, we went to the cinema. My husband was already in town working and had a car with him, so in the interest of the environment, my mother and I took public transport, as we would all get home in one car. This involved a short walk, a bus, another short walk, a train, another short walk and a tram. It was REALLY hot and I puffed and panted a lot when making the short walks.

In the cinema, which was thankfully air-conditioned, we watched the film. My OB had told me that if I didn't feel Moksha kicking (which I always had) I could put on some loud music and see if it made a difference.

I had never done that, usually he kicked on his own or when I poked him. But I always felt a bit bad about poking him. Well, and I only realised this several weeks after he died, during the film, which had loud sound, I had thought, he's kicking but not really responding a lot to the sound. At the time, I just thought, sound doesn't do it for him, since it's not a method I had ever used.

Looking back, I believe this was the first sign I should have picked up on.

The next day I had a physiotherapy appointment in the early afternoon and he did kick during that. I don't think he kicked as much as usual though. The second sign I should have picked up on. Another awful thing is that the physiotherapy place was next door to my OB's office. It would have been so easy to just duck in there and say, do you mind if I have a quick listen to the heartbeat?

In the evening, DH says that he saw Moksha kick me when he came home at 7pm although I honestly couldn't say this for myself.

At 10pm is when I started wondering. By then it was too late. Maybe he died between 7pm and 9pm. Maybe he died in the late afternoon. He hadn't been dead a long time as he just looked like he was asleep when he was born. Not to put too fine a point on it, he didn't have any signs of "decay" after death, apart from the fact that his lips were blue. He was born at 8:28am on Saturday morning.

I didn't think something could go wrong. I didn't think it could happen to me. I had no warning signs of ANYTHING throughout my whole pregnancy. No spotting. No cramping. No test scares. No IUGR. No lack of amniotic fluid. The fluid was not stained with meconium when Moksha was born. Not even any fucking nausea. As it says in my profile, I had a perfect, text-book pregnancy, from conception to, well, to the moment of death four days after my term and one day before my scheduled induction.

Moksha died before I went into labour. Neither I nor the OB thinks it was a cord accident (unless a blood clot in the cord counts as a cord accident).

As far as I know, kick counts would not save a baby from a placental or uterine abruption. I don't know whether or how threatening placental abruptions can be predicted or avoided other than by detecting one on a well-timed ultrasound. But with some cord accidents, yes if you noticed your baby slowing down, you could conceivably save him or her by having an emergency delivery earlier.

To answer your question WTF, the Baby Kick Alliance website has three types of template for monitoring kick counts - one for weeks 24-26, one for weeks 27-34 and one for weeks 35 to 42 (not that I'll ever be going to 42 weeks). So I would start at 24 weeks. The cusp of viability as you would say.

And it doesn't have to be a worrying thing to do, some people say it helps you bond with your baby, as you have a set time where you sit down and just concentrate on feeling your baby move. It's not invasive and cannot do any harm to either you or the baby. It gives more objectivity to something which is subjective, for both you and your doctor. I suppose I don't know why there isn't more awareness about it. When I asked my OB about it (too late, obviously), she said that here they only tell people to do kick counts when they have an identified high risk pregnancy. Although she was covered, as she had told me at my last two appointments before that awful night that there was no reason for Moksha to slow down, that he had plenty of space and fluid. No, the buck stops with me on that one.