Nesting During the Third Trimester of Pregnancy: Your Body Knows Best

Read any book on pregnancy and it will list a number of ways to determine that the birth of your baby is coming soon. These range from the obvious, such as your water breaking, to the less obvious, that only your doctor may be able to tell you, such as dilation of the cervix. Another sign of your impending labor may also be nesting.

Stories abound on pregnant women nesting, which is the biological or emotional instinct a female has to clean like a mad woman before she gives birth. You may have heard stories of some women cleaning at odd hours during the night. Or maybe being down on hands and knees scrubbing every nook and crevice in the floor. Washing and carefully folding every article of baby clothing multiple times or sterilizing bottles and nipples and pacifiers so everything is ready for the day they bring their baby home are also common.

At the time of both my pregnancies, my husband and I had been living with my in-laws. I never really felt like it was my home. Because of this, and much to the disappointment of my mother in law, I never really felt it was my place to jump in to do a lot of cooking and cleaning around her house. As a result, when the nesting urge hit me, I used it to detail our car. Spring weather was starting to hit, and one sunny day I took the car to the car wash. When I returned home, I proceeded to sit in the driveway for two and a half hours with Q-tips^(R), toothbrush, ArmorAll^(R) and cleaning rags. The car was looking good and my husband was impressed. About a week later, my water broke. Being wrapped up in the excitement of the birth of my first baby,it took me a while to realize that I had actually been nesting.

You might think by the time my second pregnancy rolled around, I would have realized I was in the midst of the nesting urge when I once again broke out the Q-tips and toothbrush and attacked the baby exerciser and high chair with a cleaning vengeance. This was not so, however. At the time I was only about 30 weeks along in my pregnancy. I thought that this was too early to be nesting. Little did I know that at 32 weeks into my pregnancy, approximately two weeks after my cleaning spree, my water would break and my son would be born premature.

Because of my two personal experiences, I believe that there is a primal urge buried deep within the female body that knows better than anyone or anything that your baby will soon be making an appearance. You can also see nesting occur in nature with the many forms of wildlife. Birds, sea turtles, cats and dogs all go through a nesting period in some form. They will prepare their living area for their offspring and seem to have an instinctual knowledge when that time is getting near. While some women don't experience the nesting instinct at all, those who do will often tell you that the signs of nesting are very noticeable right before giving birth, no matter when that birth may actually occur.

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