So they told you that your baby’s head is 3/5 engaged and you went ‘my baby’s head what?’

Pardon my radio silence, I have been experiencing a Hypermesis Gravidarum & low iron fiesta in the last few weeks, which have crippled my ability to function at full capacity. 

While it looks as I might have to live with HG till the end of this pregnancy given I am due in short of 8 weeks, the good news is that I am finally eligible for a an iron infusion and I am getting one next week. I am not sure if this is ‘normal’, but I am somewhat excited. Woo-hoo.

Today is not about that though, in fact I’d like to talk about babies head engagement. 

Pregnancy related terminology comes with its own vocabulary which us, expecting mums, learn along the way. I’ve genuinely lost count of how many times I’ve had to google things… so if you have to, you are not alone.

Despite this being my fourth pregnancy, this ?/5 baby’s head engagement business was a new thing I had never heard of.

A couple of weeks ago I had a routine hospital appointment and the midwife said something along the line ‘the baby’s head is not engaged’, which made 100% sense… I was 28 week pregnant at the time.

A few days ago though, I bumped into a Social post were mums-to-be where talking about their baby’s head being 1 to 3/5 engaged at whatever week in their pregnancy journey they were in, and that got me raising an eyebrow or two. So, of course, I quickly did my own research to understand what they were talking about and here are my findings.

Firstly, this refers to when your baby’s head commence their – guess what? – engagement with your pelvis.

If this is your first pregnancy, generally, that can start as early as at 34 weeks, while it tends to start later, normally not until labor has kicked off, for consequent pregnancies.

Here is what each ?/5 means:

5/5 = free

4/5 = sitting on the pelvic brim

3/5 = lower but most still above the brim

2/5 = engaged, as most is below the brim

1/5 or 0/5 = deeply engaged

Put simply, later in pregnancy, bub grows to the point that all your organs will be ‘squashed’ and that’s when walking from the kitchen to the bathroom will make you breath as hard as if you’ve just run a marathon. At this stage bub is still sitting up high and they may cause no little discomfort when you are in certain positions or when you are trying to digest that whole bowl of past you just had. This happens from around 28 weeks.

Eventually bub will start their journey to earth-side destination, moving down towards your pelvis (yay!), and that’s when your beautiful round belly will look like it has ‘dropped’. This happens in the last 3 or so weeks of your pregnancy and you will also notice that your lungs and diaphragm won’t feel as squished anymore, and that you can breath more freely. 

At this point, my dear friends, if you haven’t packed your hospital bag, this is definitely a sign that you shouldn’t wait any longer 🙂