Healthy Start program

At 18 weeks, your baby is about the length of a cucumber and your uterus is around the size of a sweet potato — see how you’re working your way through the produce department? It can be felt about 1½ inches below your belly button — so have a feel.

Flutters may be the best way to describe it. The first stirrings of your baby’s movement is traditionally called ‘quickening. ‘ It’s described by some women as feeling like butterflies in the stomach or like gentle tickling . Others compared the feeling to a little bit of gas or twitching muscles.

How often should my baby move? There is no set number of normal movements you should be feeling – every baby is different. Get to know how your baby moves. From 18-24 weeks on you should feel the baby move more and more .

Fluttering, butterflies, or bubbles Sometime between 18 and 22 weeks of pregnancy, you will start to feel your baby move. At first, these small movements feel like fluttering or “butterflies.” Some women say that they feel like gas bubbles. These first flutters are sometimes called “quickening.”