Mommies, here’s a quick and easy guide on how to use theAsianparen pregnancy kick counter app.
What can you read in this article?
- Why is counting baby’s kicks so important?
- Why TAP created this tool
- How to use theAsianparent pregnancy kick counter app
Here at theAsianparent Philippines, our aim is to make your pregnancy and parenting journey happy, memorable, and most importantly, healthy.
With this in mind, every bit of information on our website, every tool on our app that we bring you, will guide, educate and inform you so that you and your little one can stay in the pink of health.
One such tool is the Kick Counter on theAsianparent app. For pregnant women to have healthy pregnancies, it is of utmost importance that they learn how to monitor and record their baby’s movements in the womb, starting from early in the third trimester (around week 27). And the Kick Counter helps you do exactly this.
Why is counting kicks important?
It is important to keep track of all your baby’s movements daily in the third trimester. Any changes detected in this period are often the earliest sign of distress in a baby.
Understanding your baby’s unique movement pattern will ensure that you know that he or she is okay. When a mother has established regular kick patterns, she has a sense of what is considered normal and regular, and what is not.
Once you know how many kicks your little one typically engages in within an hour or during the day, you will also know when your baby deviates from this pattern.
Often, when a baby’s movements in the womb reduce, change or stop, it could indicate an issue. In some cases when this happens, stillbirth could be the devastating outcome.
Image from Shutterstock
What is stillbirth?
Stillbirth is the loss or death of a baby inside his mother’s womb that occurs before the 20th week of pregnancy.
According to reports, fifty percent of mothers who have lost a baby to stillbirth in the third trimester said that they noticed a gradual decline in fetal movement several days prior to the loss of the pregnancy.
What does this reveal? This indicates that many cases of stillbirth are not sudden. Also, this suggests that you might be able to save your baby if you are aware of the warning signs and of what’s normal and what’s not with regard to his movements in your womb.
Knowing your baby’s kick pattern and knowing when this changes could help reduce the chances of stillbirth.
There have been multiple reports about moms who noticed a change in their child’s movement inside the womb through counting kicks, and they were able to get to their doctor in time and saved their baby’s life.
Aside from helping prevent stillbirth, counting your baby’s kicks is also one way to help you bond with your baby as you take the time to be silent and focus on your child’s movement.
Kick counts in pregnancy also create bonding opportunities between you and your unborn baby, and between your partner and your developing baby too. Or if you already have a child, it’s a great activity to introduce him or her to his/her sibling, and engage in bonding.
When should you start counting your baby’s kicks?
According to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, you should begin counting kicks in your 28th week, or at 26 weeks if you are high risk or pregnant with multiples.
Why the Kick Counter?
The reason theAsianparent created this tool is because we realized that stillbirth is a real problem in Southeast Asia (SEA). About 105,000 babies were lost in stillbirths in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam in 2015 alone.
That means every day that year, an average of 287 families received the devastating news of full-term pregnancy loss. However, one-third of these losses could have been prevented — and one way of prevention is counting your baby’s kicks or movements.
With the aim of reducing pregnancy loss in the region through education and awareness, theAsianparent launched Project Sidekicks. And in line with this cause, we launched the pregnancy kick counter feature on theAsianparent app.
Experts says that the normal movement of a baby inside the womb is approximately 10 times an hour. The pregnancy kick counter app not only helps you track your baby’s kicks, but also record them, so that you can detect if there is a change in the pattern or no movement at all. This enables you to seek medical advice, and if needed — intervention — quickly.
READ MORE:
Counting Kicks: Why & How to Track Fetal Movement
Tips for Sleeping on Your Side to Avoid Stillbirth
Edema and shortness of breath during the third trimester: What moms-to-be should know
theAsianparent pregnancy kick counter app – How to use it
You will find the pregnancy kick counter in the “Tools” section of theAsianparent app.
Click on that icon and start your counting!
Once you click the tool, you’ll be brought to the pregnancy kick counter on the app:
If you are unsure of what to do, the instructions are easy to follow.
Once you have read the instructions, press the start button to start counting kicks!
It’s actually fun and you can involve your partner in the recording the kicks.
And you can pick what KIND of “kick” it is.
This part is usually a fun guessing game!
Continue recording the kicks over one hour, or 60 minutes. The best time to do this is right after eating as this is usually when babies are most active.
You can even set up reminders for yourself to make sure that you count your kicks every day!
Try to set your alarms to when meal times are.
There are daily, weekly and monthly reports of your activity so you can keep up easily with the health of your pregnancy this way. This will help you monitor and overview the kicks of your baby.
Kick counts in pregnancy and how important it is.
The reports that are generated when you use the pregnancy kick counter app are useful, as you can show these to your doctor during checkups.
Jane, a mom of two, shared how this feature helped them ease their firstborn into welcoming his new sibling.
“Me and my husband let our Kuya Sky observe the ultrasound result and watch the ultrasound video. We explained and described to him what a baby inside a mother’s womb looks like, and asked him to join me whenever I’m using the baby Kick Counter at theAsianParent mobile application so he can also feel baby Heaven’s kicks and jabs.”
Our pregnancy kick counter is not the only feature in our app. There are plenty of other tools that help pregnant women, moms, and dads in raising their kids, like the Pregnancy and Baby Development Trackers, the Media Module, and the Recipe Feature.
We also have a wonderfully supportive community of parents, prizes and rewards to win, and much more. And don’t forget, you can download the app for free! So what are you waiting for?
Click here to download theAsianparent app now.
Let us know if you have been using our pregnancy kick counter app. We would love to hear what kind of kicks you have been getting!
Source:
Count the Kicks.org
