Fetal movement counting reduces maternal anxiety: Study Explore
This Story Pregnant women who monitor their babies’ movements
via fetal movement counting during the third trimester tend to
be less anxious about their babies’ wellbeing than other
pregnant women. That’s the key finding from a study conducted by
researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in
Oslo, Norway. The study (“Fetal Movement Counting: Maternal
Concern and Experience: A Multi-Centre, Randomized Controlled
Trial”) was published in the March 2012 issue of the journal
Birth. Fetal movement counting allows a pregnant woman to tune
into her baby’s movements in the hope that she can pick up on
either a decrease in the frequency or the intensity of those
movements — a possible indication that baby is running into
difficulty. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of
Canada’s Clinical Practice Guidelines on Antenatal Fetal
Assessment suggest possible methods of kick counting: the
Cardiff method, which involves counting 10 mov