How to Do Baby Kick Counts: A Calming Daily Check-In
One of the best ways to keep an eye on your baby’s health during pregnancy is by noticing their movements — something most mothers naturally do. When you want or need to be more intentional about monitoring your baby’s well-being, research shows there’s an especially effective way to do “kick counts.”
Understanding kick counts can boost your confidence, empower you to track your baby’s well-being independently, reduce anxiety, and even improve outcomes. These are the directions I share with my midwifery clients — including the often-missed details that make the test truly accurate.
Healthy babies almost always have active periods, especially in the evening after supper. Variations may come with perfectly normal babies who have quiet sleep periods lasting up to an hour, or your placenta may be in front (‘anterior’) which tends to muffle their movements a bit. On the other hand, babies who aren’t feeling well tend to move less — just like we rest more when we’re under the weather. Counting your baby’s movements provides one of the earliest windows into how your baby is doing and expands your ability to respond if something seems off. Most of the time, kick counts confirm what you already sense: your baby is thriving — and that reassurance can be wonderfully calming.
How to Do a Fetal Kick Count
Choose your time.
Pick a time of day when your baby tends to be most active — often after dinner, when your day begins to slow down.You pick the start time.
This is essential and often overlooked. Start the clock when you decide to begin, not when the baby first starts moving. This detail, from the original research, makes all the difference.Count 10 movements in up to one hour.
A “pass” is 10 movements — rolls, kicks, flutters, flips, or punches — within one hour from your chosen start time. (Don’t count hiccups.) Whether this takes 15 minutes or 59 minutes, it’s equally good news. Statistically, this means your baby is doing well for the next 24 hours.If fewer than 10 movements occur in an hour:
Stop the test and restart for a second hour — keeping the same start time. Don’t “adjust” the clock to when the baby began moving.The baby passes with 10 movements in the second hour.
Passing on the second try is normal and not a cause for worry.If your baby moves fewer than 10 times in the second hour:
It’s best to get checked with a non-stress test (NST) at your hospital’s labor and delivery triage. In my experience, most NSTs confirm that everything is fine within 20 minutes to 2 hours — but occasionally, they identify a baby who truly benefits from extra attention or timely intervention.
If your baby passes the NST, you’ll usually be reassured and sent home. Occasionally needing a second test is no problem, but if you repeatedly make it into a third hour, it’s a good time for there to a closer look. Knowing what questions to ask can help you be calmer, more informed, and better equipped to make decisions if you end up needing to vary your plan. Here’s my blog on informed consent to get you started if you’d like more support in this area.
I had the good fortune of learning these details from Dr. Cayle, who participated in the original fetal movement research back in the 1990s. He emphasized two things:
Do the test at the same general time every day.
Start the clock yourself — not when the first movement occurs.
He shared that when mothers followed these directions exactly, infant mortality rates dropped dramatically.
Even with the understanding that we can never “guarantee” outcomes in health care, he would say simply, “Statistically, the babies were fine for 24 hours.” By comparison, near the end of pregnancy hospital-based non-stress tests are usually done twice weekly and provide insight into the baby’s well-being for only the 24 hour that follow. That means several days go by unmonitored, while daily kick counts at home let you check in more frequently and naturally.
As a midwife, I typically recommend starting daily kick counts in the last 4–6 weeks of pregnancy, unless there’s a reason to begin sooner. Some clients already feel closely attuned to their baby’s movements and prefer to use the kick count only on days when movement feels quieter than usual. Sometimes other worries or discomforts creep in during the third trimester. If you’re experiencing a lot of uncomfortable swelling (edema), here’s some midwife suggestions for relief today.
One of the loveliest side benefits of daily awareness is how it deepens connection. Taking a few deep, relaxing breaths and gently checking in with your baby — whether silently or out loud — brings calm for both of you. Our babies are “having a day” right alongside us, and a moment of mindful attention often helps them (and us) to relax, supporting their growth and well-being.
Kick counts should never become “one more test to worry about.” Life is complicated enough. Ideally, think of this as a calm, neutral tool — a way to gather information, reduce worry, and, when needed, guide care in real time. And keep coming back to those slow, gentle breaths, checking in with yourself and your baby as you go.