During my first three pregnancies, I would hear mothers to be talking about baby’s hiccups. They talked about feeling the baby hiccup. I never felt it. Not even once in three pregnancies. I looked for it too, but it just never happened. I first felt a baby hiccup when I was pregnant with our son.
Before I felt our baby hiccup, I wondered if I had just missed it with the three girls. Somehow, I doubted it. I usually feel every movement and am pretty conscious of their movements. When I felt our son hiccup, I knew I had never felt it before.
The hiccups feel like hiccups, but in your abdomen. It feels like a twitching or jumping feeling in your stomach. They usually happen in spurts, with only a few seconds between twitches. With my son, they always stopped within ten minutes or so. Luckily, he isn’t like his mother. I can have them all day long!
The sensation is unlike any other movements. The rhythm of the twitches and the frequency make the hiccups much different from the rolls, kicks and punches you normally experience during pregnancy. Once you feel them a few times, you’ll notice it right away.
Each baby is different in how often they get the hiccups. Some babies only get them a few times throughout the pregnancy. Other babies can hiccup every day or even several times each day. Interestingly, many babies will continue the same pattern after they are born. Babies who get the hiccups a lot during pregnancy often continue to get them a lot as newborns. This has held true in our house. My girls never hiccup and my son very rarely does it.
You may wonder if the hiccups are uncomfortable for your baby. I wondered about this and even asked the doctor. I hate having the hiccups and I imagined the baby being uncomfortable. Fortunately, the baby isn’t bothered by the hiccups when he is still in utero.
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