38 WEEKS PREGNANT: What You NEED To Know For You & Baby // WHAT TO EXPECT // KIDS OT HELP PREGNANT

Hello, mamas and my soon-to-be mamas. In this video, I'm breaking down pregnancy at 38 weeks. Coming up. Hello, my friend, and welcome back to the Kids OT Help channel. If you're new here, welcome. My name's Nicole. I'm a mama. I am a pediatric occupational therapist, as well as an intentional parenting coach. This channel is geared to help you with all things motherhood, parenting, and child development. If that sounds like something you're into, do me a favor and hit the subscribe button. All right, guys. I am 38 and a half weeks pregnant. I just want to spill some of the beans with you. If this is your first pregnancy and you are curious, like, what does it feel like to be this pregnant? At the very end, what should I be expecting? This video's for you. All right, so first and foremost, I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my 36-week update, but at 36 weeks, you're going to start seeing your OBGYN weekly. So instead of going in every couple of weeks, they now want to see you once a week. So in fact, I have an appointment coming up here shortly. Around 38 weeks, your OBGYN might start talking to you about what it looks like if you don't go into labor on your own in the next couple of weeks. Typically, your doctor will discuss with you when they would induce, and that typically happens either if you're high-risk, they may want to induce you earlier, or if you are not high-risk and everything is moving along smoothly, they're likely to tell you that they want to induce between 41 and 42 weeks, as that is when you are at an increased risk of delivering a stillborn baby, which absolutely nobody wants. Yeah, they kind of put that on your forecast, which is an interesting psychological switch, because you go from this entire pregnancy just being like, stay in here, you're early, you've got a long ways to go, kiddo, we're baking the bun here, to then being hit with this information where you're like, okay, we have a window. Here's an eviction notice. I need you out before this date because I don't want to be induced. So that's kind of where I'm at psychologically. I'm super happy, 38 and a half weeks, baby is pretty much cooked. Every day that the baby is in here only sort of adds to the development. We talk about the sensory systems and how they're developing. It's helpful for baby to be in as long as it is safe, and the lungs, right? The lungs are preparing to be able to work independently, and while at 38 and a half weeks or so, your baby should be good, extra days can only help your little one developmentally. So I'm in this place where I'm like, okay, cool. We've baked you enough where you are going to be independent, you should be independent, but also this next week or so can really help with development, but also I'm going to need you out. I'm going to need you out like right around 40 weeks so that we're not pushing up against induction. So that brings me to my next thing. As you guys know, if you've been following me, I have been doing acupuncture and at 36 weeks, I did mention this in the last video, you are then allowed to start adding more specific types of treatments that are actually going to aid in the labor and delivery. So essentially it is sending blood and energy to the areas in which are going to be doing a lot of movement during the labor and delivery process. So these are your ligaments, this is like your pelvic girdle, all of these things are going to loosen and spread obviously so baby can make his or her way in the birthing canal. And I actually happen to have an appointment with my lovely friend Lauren, whom I have mentioned before, but I will tag her information below if you are local in the Ventura County area, check her out. She is so amazing. But she's starting to add on to our treatments. So it's really starting to kick things in gear for me at a slow pace because we didn't want to throw everything in there at once and just maybe start labor like that wasn't the goal. It's really to sort of ease your body into and prepare your body for the inevitable and hopefully make that process much easier so your body isn't having to do all of that work at one specific time, but more or less that your body is gradually taking these steps you know in the weeks leading up to actually delivering your baby. So I'm really really excited to kind of share that process on the back end and compare you know what the labor and delivery process was like for this kiddo versus Kai. Granted they'd be different regardless of whether I was doing acupuncture, but I will say she warned me yesterday that like I may have an increase in contractions. And that I would feel baby move a lot and it would probably last for about 24 hours and then die back down. And I'm not kidding you like I was still on the table and I felt contractions start to kick up like they were much more intense and they were happening pretty regularly. And I left thinking oh my gosh is this going to send me into labor right now? And like the whole evening I was telling Mike I was like ooh okay I'm watching like this could really happen. And they actually did die down later in the evening. But it's just interesting to see that process work for your body. Like I know that we're like we're moving in the right direction and all of my parts are being prepared and so I just highly recommend if you are in pain or if you're struggling or if you've had a less than desirable experience in the past to consider acupuncture. It's new for me but it's been a really nice tool that I've been utilizing in this process. And even before acupuncture I definitely noticed an increase in contractions. I am having contractions pretty regularly. They are very mild usually. I do note going over any type of speed bump or uneven like road is very uncomfortable. If you're 38 weeks maybe even before you'll notice this. Like any jolting or movements you're like oh please stop. Something else that I've noticed is that the contractions will radiate up my back. So I'm having a lot more back pain. Just discomfort generally. And that's totally normal. Weird thing that happens to some pregnant women. This did not happen to my first pregnancy but I've had a confirmation from another mama who said that this did happen to her as well. Do you hear joint cracking in your stomach? I hear popping, snaps. It sounds like knuckles are cracking sometimes when my baby is moving and I'm like did you break a toe in there? What is happening? And it's this unsolved mystery apparently. I've googled and nobody's really spent money to do research on what the noise is. And so the theories are either that your baby is making the noise with their mouth which I kind of highly doubt especially since my baby is head down and I'm hearing it like higher up. They'd say it could be their joints popping and cracking which is just. It's a little like hard for me to believe because they're so bendy but that's actually what they're saying. They're so bendy that it does pop but I would think that the more fragile you are the more it pops. Anyways, it's so strange. It catches me off guard. I stop what I'm doing and I'm like are you okay in there? It's so weird. And at 38 weeks you might also be doing perineal stretching. And if you're not sure what that is, it's this lovely exercise that is supposed to aid in the labor and delivery process and help prevent you from tearing which is a high priority for a lot of us women. But essentially your partner can get in with their fingers and inside of your vagina and start like stretching. Google it. I'm not an expert in it and I did briefly do it with Kai. It wasn't really my favorite thing. I probably should do it this time. But Google it if you're interested because there are a lot of people who say that it did help to prevent tearing. So this is maybe even something you want to start doing around 36 weeks. But it just kind of helps, you know, stretch things out for lack of better terms to prepare your body for 7, 8, 9 pound human that will be exiting that area. So as opposed to shocking your body all at once with that, especially if it's your first pregnancy, everything is supposed to be some gentle gradual preparation for your body. Like that's what we want to do. We don't want to shock our body all at once. We want to gradually prepare it for what it's supposed to do. In any case, as you can also tell at 38 weeks, I probably look exhausted. I am so tired. You guys, I will need a nap after this video. That is, that is how low my energy is these days. I would highly suggest, and I need to take my own advice to eat foods that are going to fuel you. I have been so carb heavy this pregnancy. It is, it is, it is shameful and shameful. I've enjoyed it, but it's, it hasn't helped me and it certainly hasn't helped my energy levels. And so as I'm sitting here complaining about how tired I am, I'm reminded that I could be helped in that category by choosing more nutrient dense foods that are going to boost my energy or help me maintain a more even energy level throughout the day. So that is something that I would recommend also. In any case, I hope you found this video helpful and I hope you are feeling okay. If not wonderful, that'd be great. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. If not, I will catch you guys in the next video and I'm curious what the next video is going to be. We'll have a 40 week update for you or if I'll be introducing my kid to you. Hope you're having a beautiful day. I will catch you in the next one. Bye.