Does head engagement affect when you go into labour?

[livziem]

I’m 36 weeks and midwife previously said head was super low but now at latest check up she said baby is still head down but floating around. Second baby so maybe more room in there now but this really discouraged me as I’m super uncomfortable and have had various health challenges this pregnancy and so am not looking to go overdue. does anyone know if head not being engaged at 36 weeks is normal and can you still go into labour at a reasonable time lol even if it isn’t?

 

[DobbyForever]

Hi! I don’t recall my stations exactly, but I started drinking RLT at 27w. By 32w I was 50-75% effaced and dilated 2-3cm at every appointment. I know that baby was head down but not particularly low. I was in for an appointment two days before I gave birth, and they told me my son was approximately 5lbs but not to worry as they put on a lb a week and they didn’t expect me to go into labor for at least two weeks. I do vaguely remember her saying he hadn’t “dropped”. I remember my son still being fairly high when I got to L&D and was 6-7cm. My water had to be manually broken, but he dropped fairly quickly after that. I was almost ready to go within a couple hours but they wouldn’t let me push because I had a tiny lip curl they wanted sorted/the doctor was busy. Hope that was helpful! Basically my point is that things can go from 0 to 60 overnight. I was 38w4d when I had my son.

ETA
4 days before I had my son, doc told me 2-3cm, 75% effaced, -1 station (routine appt)
3 days before I had my son, diff doc 2-3cm, 50% effaced, -3 station (went to L&D with reduced movement scare).
They told me effacement and station is subjective, so that’s why two doctors within 24h could say completely different things. Doc 1 said I was weeks out. Doc 2 said any day because my “bag was bulging” then quickly retracted that when pressed saying nobody can predict labor. But yeah he said baby was still very high compared to the doc the day before saying he was basically at 0 station. So

 

[Babybump87]

I’m 36 weeks and midwife previously said head was super low but now at latest check up she said baby is still head down but floating around. Second baby so maybe more room in there now but this really discouraged me as I’m super uncomfortable and have had various health challenges this pregnancy and so am not looking to go overdue. does anyone know if head not being engaged at 36 weeks is normal and can you still go into labour at a reasonable time lol even if it isn’t?

Completely normal . Some babies have only just turned at this point . Second babies do tend to Bob in and out with more space. Try a birthing ball to help baby drop . There’s a few other methods too I tried everything with DD1 and still went 9 days over so didn’t do anything with my other pregnancies but I do walk a lot which midwife says helped !

I agree with Dobby things can change in a matter of hours . labour is a wonderful guessing game on what’s going to happen ! Good luck !