Anterior Placenta.

As anyone who’s been pregnant after experiencing a loss can tell you, anxiety levels are already inherently high without any sort of additional factors getting introduced during the subsequent pregnancy. After my 20-week anatomy scan for my current pregnancy, my anxieties were temporarily eased when I was informed that everything looked normal and was progressing as expected. What I also learned from this ultrasound was that they had determined that I have an anterior placenta. What was this and what did it mean for me?

An anterior placenta is when your placenta (essentially the lifeline organ that helps develop your baby by passing in oxygen and nutrients) attaches to the front of your womb instead of the back. My doctor explained that although this was normal, just less common (she compared it to being left-handed instead of right-handed), she said that there may be one particularly challenging aspect for someone like me.

Queue my anxiety levels reactivating

Because an anterior placenta adds an additional layer or “cushion” between you and your baby, it can make it more difficult to feel baby’s movements.

(Awesome.)

During a pregnancy where I was already going to be hypersensitive to baby’s movements, this was going to potentially add a layer (quite literally) of difficulty with feeling them. The good news? I have been feeling baby move regularly, which has at least eased some of my anxieties.

For those who do have an anterior placenta, it is important to note that even though this can make it harder to feel all of baby’s movements, it is still imperative that especially during the later weeks in pregnancy (mainly the third trimester) that you still contact your doctor if you do notice a change or decline in movement, or no movement at all. You might feel uncertain, but it is always better (and safer) to edge on the side of caution!