hi kitstwins
I seem to be the same as you because most of my bleeds are happening in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, had a very small one today at work and had to come home due to hospital midwifes advice, but i have to say that things do seem to be improving as the frequency has gone down.
Yes i agree families are truly unique !!!

P.S. Can relate to the teeth-sucking, doom-merchant relatives too. We had a bit of "don't get your hopes up" and lots of sad looks after a few of my bleeds, which was incredibly irritating. Of course they were the ones who trotted out the old "You're in the best place" when I was in hospital on bedrest but never once came to visit me in this "best place". And once the babies were born these were the people who were tripping over themselves to to say "I KNEW everything would be alright!!!" which was both amusing and maddening at the same time.

Families eh?!

Glad to hear it was helpful.

As with the conflicting advice I got this too although I erred on the side of caution and followed the advice about pelvic rest and took things very easy. It was hideously boring as I was superfit and active up until this point (ran lots before pregnant) but I figured that if I did leap about and do lots of stuff and had a nasty bleed I would always blame myself. At least if I took things easy I would know that the bleeding was not down to anything I did or didn't do but just one of those things.

There are two camps - those that think that the bleeding will happen regardless of what you do and those that think it can be influenced. I think there's arguments for both: Certainly, the majority of my bleeds happened at night when I was lying fast asleep in bed and not doing anything remotely active. But equally, the cervix and uterus can be affected by strenuous activity i.e. can trigger braxton hicks, which in turn could irritate the cervix and/or placenta and trigger a bleed.

Not much help as it's all fairly 'grey area' but I'd stick with your plan of taking things easy and bask in the knowledge that this means ZERO housework from now onwards. Hope all is going well and things remain settled. Keep me posted as I'd like to hear how you're getting on.

hi kitstwins thanks for replying to my post.I have had mixed reports from doctors some said take it easy ,no sex , walking ,lifting etc and the last one i saw said just carry on as normal if your going to bleed the its gunna happen no matter what you do! So i must admit i was slightly confused as to which i should do ,i have taken it easy since thursday my last episode and so far nothing has happened , so maybe that was the right choice.

I have read some of the other threads and i have to say i feel a lot more at ease now its amazing how just talking to someone who has experienced the same thing can make you feel better,the doctors have been great with me and we have been joking about the hospital being my second home.One of my family members hasnt been supportive so it has been a bit hard for me ,basically tellng me (its not looking good for you is it,i dont fancy your chances ) THINGS I DONT NEED TO HEAR.
So its nice that there are people like yourselves out there . Thank you again.

vicky

Hi vdoyle sorry to hear you've had a further bleed from your last post. It's horrible isn't it - before I was diagnosed with placenta praevia I just assumed I'd be like all my friends and just cruise through pregnancy? Instead I had the most highly medicalised and panicked of all of us and it really sucked.

I'm no expert but the red blood and clots is what I had during my bleeds so it does sound as if the bleeding is related to your placenta and it may well be very close to your cervix. Presumably you've been told to take things very easy? I was put on something called "pelvic rest" which sounded very quaint and almost Victorian, but actually turned out to be a long, boring list. No exercise, no strenuous activity, no sex, no orgasm, no lifting, no jumping....nothing that could irritate the uterus or cervix and trigger another bleed. Because I had twins I got lots of braxton hicks and I found if I walked faster than a snail's pace it triggered them, which in turn increased my risk of bleeding.

I'm sure they've told you all of this, but if you have a bleed go to hospital. Ring your labour ward on the way and turn up. Sometimes the bleeding can irritate the uterus, causing it to contract, and this can kickstart early labour. If this happens they can give you drugs to block this and they work. I had early labour at 23 weeks (disastrous!), 25 weeks, 28 weeks, all of which were blocked with drugs and in the end I made it to a very respectable and safe 35 weeks, which is good for twins.

It all looked bad for me in the early stages - twins and all the bleeding I was having and the labour scares but I got through it and my babies were born safe and well and absolutely none the worse for all the dramas. The 'good thing' with bleeding, if you can call it that, is that consultants and midwives take it very seriously and you really do get an increased level of care. Your pregnancy will be closely monitored. The downside is that you may have to prepare yourself for a hospital stay at some point but if you search praevia posts on Mumsnet you'll see some good threads with advice for coping with hospital stays, etc. I'm sure I've waffled at length on my tips for it in several posts.

Let me know how you get on with the extra scans. You might have to nag and push for them but it doesn't mean to say you're not entitled or allowed them. Sometimes you just have to ask as they don't always offer.

Take things easy if you can. The less you do the better I think as overexerting yourself can sometimes trigger extra bleeds. It's really hard though and I do sympathise. You don't deserve this in your pregnancy so I really feel for you.

K

Thorathora thank you so much for your advice the bleeding is red fresh blood with small blood clots in it,i have had another bleed since posting the first message (4 this week).I am rhesus negative aswell so i keep having to have blood tests and anti-d injections every time it happens,im defiantly going to take your advice as i feel its getting worse instead of slowing down. thank you again

Thorathora I missed your last post but I just wanted to say congratulations on the birth of your twin boys. You had a real rollercoaster and it must have been pretty traumatic.

I think you're very brave as bleeding coupled with an hospital stay and then a crash section, pph and babies in special care is no small deal. It must have been really traumatic so I hope you're getting lots of support and care after what you've been thought. It often gets swept under the carpet once the babies have arrived as there is so much to do and no time to 'indulge' your own feelings, but I do hope you get time to process things. From personal experience, Praevia and an hospital stay can really take it out of you both phsyically and emotionally and it can take a long time to build yourself up again afterwards because, for so long after your babies are born, you're the bottom of the pile. It's hard, but try to take care of yourself too or make sure that other people are taking care of you.

vdoyle sorry to hear you are having bleeding. You don't say what the bleeding looks like - is it red or darker brown? Equally, were they able to pick up where exactly your placenta was? Whether it's just lowlying or actually over or semi-over your cervix (placenta praevia)? If it's just low-lying then the odds are that the bleeding will stabilise and the placenta will move out of the way into the 'safe' zone (around 90/95% of cases do), which is usually 3cm away from the cervix. Although I don't want to worry you, your consultant will probably tell you that the fact that you've had bleeding means that you're more likely to bleed again although it CAN settle. It's not a foregone conclusion and there are plently of people who've bled in mid-pregnancy from a low-lying placenta and then cruised through the rest of their pregnancy without a further bleed. It's just it's MORE likely if you've bled already. Unfortunately there's no way of knowing which one you'll be though which is why it may be worth pushing for another scan so that they can precisely pinpoint where your placenta is i.e. how lowlying it is. Equally, when you get to 24 weeks you can ask for steroids as if you do get further bleeds and the babies are born early then this will help their lungs. They tend to do two steroid shots over eight weeks for optimum effect so if you had the injections at 24 weeks then you could have the second lot at 32 weeks. I had two lots and my babies, born at 35 weeks, avoided special care and didn't need any help with breathing.

Bleeding is really worrying but the fact that it is light is a good sign. You're 90% likely to be one of the 90% whose bleeding stops and their pregnancy continues on as normal, but if you wanted peace of mind and more reassurance it might be worth pushing for a more detailed/extra scan just to see if you can pinpoint this placenta.

Good luck and I hope everything settles down. K

Hi im 21 weeks pregnant and am slightly anxious as i have been bleeding for three weeks now .i found out i have a low lying placenta at my 20 week scan but my bleeding is becoming more frequent every other day,i have been in hospital three times this week,the bleeding is only slight at the moment but i am anxious that the next one will be heavier and i know at this stage my baby is not viable yet so i am starting to become afraid. Does anyone have any good advice for me or any positive stories similar to mine with bleeding early on ,i desperatly need some reassurance. thanks vicky

Hi Kitstwins,

Thank you so much for the message. Unfortunately I had a massive bleed later that day, last tuesday, and my boys were born by crash section that evening at 30+1.

They are doing well on the neonatal unit now and I am back at home after a nice big blood transfusion.

Thanks again
Isobel

Hi Thorathora,

Sorry you're back in. I think with placenta praevia you do in the end become nothing more than a timebomb and I know for the consultants it becomes a bit like a game of 'chicken'. They sit there evaluating the risks and balancing it all up. How long can they keep the babies cooking versus should they get them out in case you have a really, really big bleed?

I think this is where consultants come into their own - it's about a lot more than guesswork on their part and even though you can feel like nothing more than a clinical study in a casebook, to them that's what it has to be about. You are a complex medical case requiring skilled assessment and evaluation. Becuase of this, your emotions can feel irrelevant and I know I struggled with that. I HATED being stuck in hospital and struggled with the boredom, the isolation, the fear, the shIt food, the sleepless nights, EVERYTHING. Not being in my own home whist everyone else seemingly got on and enjoyed their pregnancies felt very unfair. You lose so much with placenta praevia - the blithe enjoyment of pregnancy, the fiddling around at home for the last few weeks of your pregnancy, the lazy trips to coffee shops and baby shops on your maternity leave. I got none of that and it really upset me.

Everyone trips over themselves to say that you're in the best place and you absolutely are. If the doctors are getting edgy about you staying there then it really is probably the sensible choice to grit your teeth and take their advice. They are covering their backs, but only because the risk of further bleeding and a very big bleed is present and you don't want that. If you do have another big bleed then hospital really is the best place for you and your babies. At the same time, it doesn't mean that you have to enjoy it or be happy about it. You're allowed to be totally f*cked off at your bad luck as staying in hospital waiting to bleed is a pretty miserable state of affairs and not one that anyone would enjoy. A hideous mix of acute boredom and acute fear are not a great state of mind day after day.

If it helps, this is what I did to get myself through my month in hospital. I was still really naffed off and went slightly barking mad, but it did help.

1. Turn your day around small events. I spent all morning washing my hair or giving myself a 'home facial'. Get someone to bring you in sachets of conditioners and face packs, etc. I would blow dry my hair into smooth brilliance and wander around with clay masks slathered on me (attractive look!).

2. Plan your day. I'd break it up into sections. The morning spent having my breakfast and walking to the hospital shop for a newspaper. Then I'd chill out for a bit or pain my toenails (would take me hours as I had to navigate my giant bump) and then go for a little walk around the grounds.

3. Go for little walks. The midwives originally got a bit grumpy about this as they said I had to be on the ward all the time in case of a bleed but I really think I'd have gone mad if I'd done as I was told. In the end, I had a bleed one evening and no one answered my buzzer (apparently it wasn't working through to the nurses station) and so I lay in bed for twenty minutes pushing the buzzer wondering where the hell everyone was. Thankfully the bleed was small and stopped pretty quickly but I did point out to them that if it had been the massive bleed that they kept warning me about then I'd have been toast in the 20 minutes it took for someone to wander into my room. After that I decided I had a bit of leeway during the day. I'd only do little walks about the (very drab) perimeter of the hospital and I always took a bit of paper and my phone with me. The paper would have my name, my hospital number (on my wrist tag also) and details about my pregnancy - praevia, twins, how many weeks I was. In the event I never bled on a walk and actually rarely bled during the day. If I did they were very, very light and short in duration.

4. Read. I'm a big reader anyway but I read every magazine going. I got my husband to bring me in books and I did the Telegraph cryptic crossword every day (I got very good!). In the end, even I was bored of reading, but it did kill a bit of time, especially if I broke it into one of my time slots rather than just reading endlessly i.e.. I'll read from 10am to 12pm and then I'll go for a little walk....

5. Beg for visits. I now realise that I didn't get visited nearly enough. Only my husband every evening (from about 6.30 after he'd left work) as all my friends worked, my hospital was far away and I don't have any family. My in laws live 200 miles away and drove down a few times but I didn't have many visits. Maybe one a week, which isn't very much when I look back. Until you're in the sitation yourself I don't think you realise how important visitors can be and so I now think I should have pushed more; rang up my friends and said "I'm going stir crazy, please visit". That way my husband might have got a bit of a break also as he spent every night for a month at the hospital, usually mopping up my tears.

6. Beg for decent food. God, I struggled with the food. I lost weight in the end and certainly was all bump and eyesockets by the time my babies were born as I subsisted on vitamin pills, iron supplements (I was badly anaemic from all the bleeding), packets of mango and yoghurt from the hospital shop. Every lunch was an egg sandwich (the only one I could bear from the rather sad selection on offer in the shop) and dinner was a packet salad from a supermarket (courtesy of my husband). HOspital food was dire - a bit like aeroplane food in that it's okay for the first day but the endless rotation of mince and nuked vegetables was just too much. Again, I wish I'd got friends to bring food in. In the end we got clever about meals (packets of smoked salmon and pitta bread and salad made meals and sandwiches for me) but it was pretty crap. I still get tearful about the fact that my mother in law drove a 400mile round trip to bring me minestrone soup and roast chicken, which I can still taste.

7. Negotiate with the consultants and midwives. Don't be afraid to say if you're struggling with it all and are tearful. In the end I cried every day I was so strung out by it all. After a near solid day of crying my consultant agreed that I could go out for dinner in the evenings and so this meant decent meals and some time in the 'real world' (which I was strangely removed on - I remember how alien being in a restaurant felt). He also agreed that I could go home on 'day release' one weekend, although that never happened as I had my big bleed and section on the Friday. I'm sure they all thought that I was a complete baby and drama queen but being in hospital can be a real struggle and your consultant, rightly concerned with the medical implications of your care, can sometimes lose sight of this. It doesn't hurt to remind them that you've got emotions too.

I can't offer help with the issue of what to do with your older child whislt you're in hospital but I did want to say hang in there. As other posters have said, in the end it DOES end and you get to go home happy and well. It doesn't really help when you're stuck in hospital as NOTHING helps, but just hold onto that thought. One day soon you'll be home with your lovely babies and you won't have placenta praevia any more.

I so remember what this is like so I really feel for you. If I can help in any way then let me know as I'm based in London.

K