Meet Jamison

• Baby Saves

• 05.12.26

“I first heard of Count the Kicks through a friend of mine from high school whose story was shared on Good Morning America of how Count the Kicks saved her baby’s life. I work in healthcare as a physical therapist and anytime I was working with a pregnant person, I was sure to tell them about the Count the Kicks app. I had used the app with my two older sons so I was familiar with how it worked and how to track my baby’s movements.

It was two days past my due date and just before bed I was alerted by the app that I hadn’t done a kick count yet. As I was doing that, I also started having mild contractions. I was able to get to the 10 movements in just under an hour, but the movements felt less ‘strong’ to me and that was significantly longer than what it typically took. I had never tried doing a kick count while having contractions before, so I wondered if that could be why it felt different but decided to call into labor and delivery.

The nurse told me that the contractions could be making the movements feel different or less noticeable but she told me to lie down and drink water to see if that changed anything. During my phone call with her, I did feel more normal movements, which was reassuring, but I still wasn’t completely at ease. About 30 min later I felt a ‘pop’ and determined it was my water breaking, however, the fluid was thick and had a brownish color to it, indicating meconium.

We had over an hour drive to the hospital so we headed out right away. I was feeling movement on the way to the hospital but it did still feel pretty urgent. When we arrived, we were taken to the triage room and it didn’t take long for things to escalate. Before they could get an IV or the midwife came in, I started to feel the urge to push and at the same time, his heart rate was having some significant decelerations.

We stayed right in the triage room and delivered him after 10-15 min of pushing. It was quiet when he came out. I said out loud ‘He’s not crying!’ My amazing midwife said ‘You’re right, he’s not. And that’s why he’s going with them’ (the NICU team was on standby). A few minutes later we heard him cry, but they still had to take him to the NICU for extra help.

Based on lab work and exams they discovered that he had been without oxygen for a period of time. They initially brought up some pretty scary things including permanent brain damage. But praise God, he improved over the next six hours and his case was classified as ‘mild.’ One of the nurses mentioned ‘It’s a good thing you were already keeping an eye on things with his movement.’

Without Count the Kicks reminding me to count, I might have gone to bed without monitoring movement. When my water broke and I saw there was meconium in it, I knew that could be a sign of distress. That plus the movement changes alerted me that he might not be doing well, which is why we went in as soon as we did.
I don’t want to think about what could have happened if we waited longer to go in or if he was born on the side of the road and didn’t have immediate medical care; things could have been much different. I find myself holding him just a little bit closer knowing what a miracle he is.

My advice to expectant parents is to remember that you are your baby’s voice. They always talk about how parents translate for toddlers … well that starts much sooner than that. The only way your baby can communicate is with their movement! When you notice their movements telling you something, you are the only one who can advocate for them!” -Melony G., Jamison’s Mom