36 weeks pregnant, belly doesn't seem to have grown in 3 weeks

1305x views and no one has experience with this?!

Hi Angelique,

What I sometimes hear is that they worry more here. A friend of mine also had them think her baby was (too) small, so they induced labor at 38 weeks. Her son was 2830 grams and 48 cm. So if she hadn't been induced and had given birth spontaneously, he probably would have had a good weight and length. They also told me our baby was small. I gave birth spontaneously at 39 weeks and 6 days to a girl; she was 2880 grams and 49 cm. Not very big, no. But she's doing super well and is now a bit above the lines on the CB chart. She's over 7 months old now.

Greetings,
Angelique

Hi!

I also smoked throughout my entire pregnancy. Not good, no, but yeah, that's just how it is. Good luck with your midwife, and let me know how it went?

Greetings,
Angelique

Why do expectant mothers smoke during pregnancy?! Don't you know what kind of consequences that can have on your child? They'll be stuck with it!!
Sounds pretty selfish to me.

Sorry, but this isn't a site for giving criticism. Everyone chooses for themselves, so please keep your comments to yourself!

Disgusting and selfish to just puff yourself up while a little miracle is growing in your belly, incomprehensible... Give up that stuff anyway, those few months for the health of your child! And this is no criticism but the truth. Don't bury your head in the sand, human being.

Estimating how big a baby is is often inaccurate. Especially when feeling the belly, and even with a growth scan (though the latter is somewhat more reliable). If there are other signs that something might be wrong with the pregnancy (e.g., less movement), it's important to get it properly checked/discussed with the professionals. But relying solely on fundal height has already led to many unnecessary interventions. So I'd definitely ask for a growth scan (even though it doesn't always give a definitive answer—it's better than just estimating from the outside).

And about smoking: if you don't want to make comments about it, you shouldn't say anything at all. Everyone should, w.m.b., be completely free to do whatever they want with their own body, but now you have someone else in there for whom you are responsible and who has no choice at all. Good that you've quit now, but honestly, I don't understand why you didn't do that right away when you got the positive pregnancy test (or even earlier when you were trying to conceive). I also can't imagine this is the first time someone has said something about it, unless you only smoke at home so no one else sees or smells it.

It's not said that your baby is now too small because of it (see above about the unreliability of those measurements), but it is 100% proven and generally known that smoking is harmful to babies in many ways (also after they are born, by the way, so stay away from it then, and the same goes for the father).