When Can Others Feel Your Baby Move From the Outside?

The question of when you'll feel your baby move is often quickly replaced by "When will someone else be able to feel the baby move?" While it takes a mom about 24 weeks to begin feeling the baby move, it will take longer before someone else can feel the baby kick from the outside. You'll have to wait a few more weeks before sharing this experience with your partner, family, or friends.

Sometime between weeks 28 to 32 of pregnancy others around you can begin to feel the baby move if they put their hands on your belly at the right moment and in the right spot. While you may have been feeling movement for several weeks, the baby needs to be a bit bigger before it can be felt from the outside.

However, the movement can be sporadic and it might even seem like your baby is avoiding being felt by anyone but you. They may have to be patient and wait until you are further along in the pregnancy.

There are factors that can make it less likely that others can feel your baby move. These include:

• Extra padding: If you are overweight or carry extra weight around your abdomen, it may take longer to feel the baby because the movements have to be stronger and larger to be felt on the outside. This doesn't mean it's impossible, just less likely earlier on.
• An anterior placenta: If your placenta is located at the front of your uterus, your baby's movements will need to be bigger and stronger to be felt through the placenta. This will also typically make it later for you to feel your baby move for the first time, let alone others.
• The position of the baby: Some positions that your baby assumes means their kicks and movements are more easily felt than others. This is not necessarily a bad thing for your baby, just hard to explain to well-meaning, but persistent relatives who really, really want to feel a few baby kicks.

You may be excited to share your baby's kicks with your partner, relatives, and friends. But some people are reluctant to experience it. They may not want to touch your body in an intimate way to feel the baby move. They may have an aversion they can't explain, even though they are supportive of your pregnancy.

If your husband or partner frequently wants to feel your baby kick, this may be welcome, at least in the privacy of your home. But for others, or in public, you may want to set some ground rules. You will have to decide how much you are willing to try to let them feel your belly. You might tell them it's allowed once a visit.

Simply because you said yes to them feeling the baby move once, does not mean that you have given them an all-access pass. You have complete ownership over your body and say as to who touches you when and where.