“Phantom Kicks”: Women's Subjective Experience of Fetal Kicks After the Postpartum Period
Publication: Journal of Women's Health
Volume 30, Issue Number 1
Abstract
Background: During pregnancy, a woman will attribute increased abdominal sensations to fetal movement. Surprisingly, many women report that they feel kick sensations long after the pregnancy; however, this experience has never been reported in the scientific literature.
Materials and Methods: We used a qualitative approach to survey n = 197 women who had previously been pregnant. We calculated the number of women who had experienced phantom kicks after their first pregnancy, and explored subjective experiences of kick-like sensations in the post-partum period.
Results: In this study, we show that almost 40% of women in our sample experienced phantom fetal kicks after their first pregnancy, up to 28 years (average 6.4 years) post-partum. Women described the phantom sensations as “convincing,” “real kicks,” or “flutters.” Twenty-seven percent of women described the experience as nostalgic or comforting, and 25.7% reported felt confused or upset by the experience.
Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that phantom kicks in the postpartum period are a widely experienced sensation, which may have implications for a woman's postpartum mental health. The mechanism behind the phantom kick phenomenon is unknown, but may be related to changes in the somatosensory homunculus or proprioception during pregnancy.
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Copyright
Copyright 2021, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.
History
Published online: 15 January 2021
Published in print: January 2021
Published ahead of print: 25 August 2020
Authors
Authors' Contributions
S.D.J. and P.G.D.W. conceived the research question; D.S., S.D.J., P.G.D.W., M.N., and E.R.O. developed the survey; D.S. and M.N. analyzed the data; D.S. and S.D.J. wrote the first draft of the article; and all authors contributed to article preparation.
Author Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.
Funding Information
S.D.J. is supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE150100406) and NHMRC Fellowship (APP1174164). S.D.J., P.G.D.W., and E.R.O. are supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function (CE1401000007). J.H. is supported by the Australian Research Council (DP190101805).
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