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Women can feel phantom fetus kicks years after giving birth

One woman reported feeling phantom post-partum kicks for 28 years after giving birth

Moya Lothian-McLean

Thursday 21 November 2019 18:07 GMT

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Women can feel phantom fetus-like kicks for up to 28 years after giving birth, new research has revealed.

Scientists at Monash University, Australia, conducted an online survey of 197 Australian women who had experienced pregnancy.

They found 40 per cent of the women had felt phantom fetal kicks after giving birth and that the sensation persisted for an average of 6.8 years following delivery.

For one woman, the strange sensation continued for a further 28 years.

Forty per cent of the women who experienced the kicks said they occurred more than once a week, while 20 per cent of that number said they felt them daily.

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

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1/2020 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama revealed in 2018 that both of her daughters were conceived via IVF after the lawyer had suffered an earlier miscarriage.
"I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were because we don’t talk about them," Obama said during an interview with Good Morning America.
"We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we’re broken.”

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan

In 2015, Priscilla Chan and husband Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, announced that they were expecting a baby girl following three miscarriages
."You feel so hopeful when you learn you’re going to have a child. You start imagining who they’ll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they’re gone. It’s a lonely experience,” Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook.
“Most people don’t discuss miscarriages because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you, as if you’re defective or did something to cause this.
“In today’s open and connected world, discussing these issues doesn’t distance us; it brings us together. It creates understanding and tolerance and it gives us hope.”

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20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Gwyneth Paltrow

In 2013, Gwyneth Paltrow revealed she lost her third pregnancy, and that the miscarriage threatened her life.
“My children ask me to have a baby all the time," she told You Magazine.
“And you never know, I could squeeze one more in. I am missing my third. I’m thinking about it. But I had a really bad experience when I was pregnant with my third. It didn’t work out and I nearly died."

Getty

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Beyonce

Beyonce spoke publicly about the miscarriage she suffered before becoming pregnant with Blue Ivy in her 2013 HBO special, "Life is But a Dream." The singer described her experience as "the saddest thing" she had ever experienced.
“About two years ago, I was pregnant for the first time and I heard the heartbeat, which was the most beautiful music I ever heard in my life," Beyonce said.
I picked out names, I envisioned what my child would look like… I was feeling very maternal. I flew back to New York to get my check up, and no heartbeat.
I went into the studio and wrote the saddest song I’ve ever written in my life called Heartbeat."

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20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Hilaria and Alec Baldwin

In April 2019, Hilaira Baldwin revealed in an Instagram post that she was in the process of experiencing a miscarriage.
Explaining why she decided to share her story on social media, Baldwin later said: "I want women who have gone through this to know: there is nothing wrong with you.
"You are not alone. I know this didn't happen because I did something wrong. This is just nature."

Getty Images for Turner

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness

In 2012, Hugh Jackman opened up about the infertility struggles he and his wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, had experienced.
"It is a difficult time. The miscarriage thing, apparently it happens to one in three pregnancies, but it's very, very rarely talked about.... It's almost secretive," Jackman said.
"But it's a good thing to talk about. It's more common and it's tough, there's a grieving process you have to go through."

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20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Pink

The singer said on a 2010 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show that she was reluctant to share about being pregnant with her daughter Willow because of a previous miscarriage.
"I was just really nervous, and I have had a miscarriage before," she said.
She eventually wrote the song "Beam Me Up" about her experience, which includes the lyrics "Just beam me up, give me a minute, I don't know what I'd say in it. I'd probably just stare, happy just to be there, holding your face."

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20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Lindsay Lohan

In March 2014, Lindsay Lohan revealed that a painful miscarriage was the reason she missed some filming for her docuseries, Lindsay.
"No one knows this…I had a miscarriage for those two weeks that I took off,” Lohan said.
“I couldn’t move. I was sick. And mentally that messes with you. Watching this series, I just know how I felt at that moment and I can relate to that girl, which sounds kind of crazy. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, this is really sad. Who’s helping her?’”

(Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for MTV)

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Lily Allen

Lily Allen has spoken candidly about having a miscarriage in 2008 and a stillbirth, losing a baby boy at six months pregnant in 2010.
“It was horrendous and something I would not wish on my worst enemy,” she said of the stillbirth.
“I have dealt with it, you know, as being at one with it. But it’s not something that you get over. I held my child and it was really horrific and painful, one of the hardest things that can happen to a person.”

IBL/REX

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Celine Dion

Before welcoming twin sons via IVF, Dion had a miscarriage.
Speaking of the experience, she said: “They said that I was pregnant and a couple of days after my husband and I were not pregnant again. We didn’t want to feel like we were playing yo-yo. But we did have a miscarriage…I never gave up.
"But I can tell you that it was physically and emotionally exhausting."

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20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Nicole Kidman

While married to Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman experienced complications in two pregnancies. The first was an ectopic pregnancy at 23, while the second was a miscarriage and occurred about a decade later.
In an interview with Marie Claire, she said: "I had a miscarriage at the end of my marriage, but I had an ectopic pregnancy at the beginning of my marriage. It was incredibly traumatic for me."

Getty

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Demi Moore

In her memoir, Inside Out, Demi Moore recalled how she became pregnant not long after she started dating Ashton Kutcher in 2003.
Speaking of the loss in an interview with Good Morning America, Moore said: "You could see combination of his dread and it shifting then immediately in to matter of fact, practical, information. Because it was unquestionable. There was no heartbeat."

Getty

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Kirstie Alley

Opening up about the emotional toll of her miscarriage, Kirstie Alley said: "When the baby was gone, I just didn’t really get over it. Neither did my body. I so thoroughly convinced my body that it was still pregnant after nine months that I had milk coming from my breasts.
I was still grieving, and I had just been told it was very possible I would never be able to have children.”

Reuters

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Tana and Gordon Ramsay

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and wife Tana have four children—but in 2016 they shared that Tana miscarried five months into her fifth pregnancy.
"We had a devastating weekend as Tana has sadly miscarried our son at five months," Ramsay wrote on Facebook alongside a photo of Tana after she finished an Ironman triathlon.
"We're together healing as a family, but we want to thank everyone again for all your amazing support and well wishes."

PA

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Sharon Stone

In 2012, Sharon Stone revealed that she has suffered three second-trimester pregnancy losses.
"The last time I lost the baby, I went into 36 hours of labour," she recalled. "While we were at the hospital, our adoption attorney called."
Stone went on to adopt three sons, Roan, Quinn and Laird.
The actor said she was unable to have children due to an autoimmune condition that made it difficult for her to carry a pregnancy to full-term.

Getty

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Gabrielle Union

In 2018, Gabrielle Union announced that she and husband Dwayne Wade had welcomed their first child together, a baby girl, via a surrogate.
The star previously revealed she had suffered at least eight miscarriages and three years of failed IVF treatments.
In an interview with Women’s Health, the actor said that using a surrogate to carry her child made her feel like “surrendering to failure”.
“There’s nothing more that I wanted than to cook my own baby,” Union said. “The idea of [using a surrogate] felt like surrendering to failure.”

Getty Images

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Nicola Sturgeon

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon decided to speak about her pain at miscarrying a baby in 2011 in the hope of challenging some of the “assumptions and judgments” made about women who do not have children.
The SNP leader said she was in the early stages of her pregnancy and preparing to share the news when the miscarriage occurred.
“Sometimes, for whatever reason, having a baby just doesn't happen – no matter how much we might want it to,” Sturgeon said.
“Judgements and assumptions shouldn't be made about what are personal choices and experiences.”

Getty

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Courteney Cox

Courteney Cox recently admitted that it was “terrible having to be funny” while filming Friends after suffering a miscarriage.
Speaking in an interview, the actor explained: “I remember one time I just had a miscarriage and Rachel (played by Jennifer Aniston) was giving birth.
“It was like that same time. Oh my God, it was terrible having to be funny.”
After marring David Arquette in 1999, Cox had a total of seven miscarriages caused by anti-bodies that attacked the foetus.
After two rounds of IVF she welcomed her daughter Coco in 2004.

Getty

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Mariah Carey

After announcing that she was pregnancy in 2010, Mariah Carey revealed that her first pregnancy with Nick Cannon ended in miscarriage.
'Unfortunately that was a time where [the doctor] said, "I'm sorry but the pregnancy is unsuccessful",” Carey said.
"It kind of shook us both and took us to a place that was really dark and difficult.”

Rex Features

20 celebrities who have opened up about baby loss

Leandra Medine

In 2016, style blogger Leandra Medine, aka Man Repeller, announced that she suffered a miscarriage following IVF.
Speaking about the loss on her website, Medine said: “It felt impossible to deal with emotionally, but even harder to try and suppress, which I so wanted to.
“Over-sharer that I am, though, if anyone is to ask how I’m doing I can’t help but tell them, ‘I lost a baby last week, but it’s going to be okay.’ Almost as if it’s a badge of honor: I can get pregnant, too, you know.”

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The emotions women associated with the kicks varied, depending on the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy.

Some women reported the phantom kicks as a positive experience, saying they prompted feelings of nostalgia or comfort.

Yet a proportion of respondents were left feeling confused and upset by the sensations.

Twenty seven per cent of women questioned said the kicks impacted them negatively, particularly individuals who said they had experienced abortion, stillbirth, miscarriages or traumatic births.

“It made me feel really upset that my body was still “fooled” into thinking I was still pregnant,” reported one anonymous participant, whose baby was delivered stillborn at 24 weeks.

“[I thought the kicks were caused] by my body returning to normal [after pregnancy], combined with wishful thinking that my baby did not die,” she added.

Researchers have yet to find a biological explanation for the kicks but wrote that the results showed post-partum phantom kicks were a “widely experienced” sensation.

They also noted that the kicks may also be a risk factor for anxiety and depression in vulnerable women.

"It may be down to how our brains perceives our body" Philip Corlett of Yale School of Medicine told The New Scientist.

"After pregnancy, a woman’s brain could still be expecting those sensations to occur, causing some change in the body," he explained.

If you have been affected by any issues raised in this article, please visit Mind UK.

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