Due February 07 - New Thread!!

[Tommy]

there we go...... that wasn't painful at all

hi all! decided against goin in and am goin to keep an eye on things. i have to go tomorrow for bloods so if i am still leaking then i will pop into antenatal clinic. baby is moving loads and not much seems to be escaping at the mo.
i will let you know how it al goes.. have any of you experienced problems with your pregnancy and or hospital?

i couldnt find a coat anywhere but next have this great shawl cardi thingy that is great for mums with tums. its grey and black/brown stripe and its really nice also you can wear it with out looking like a flasher when bump arives

bubblebell - if you're actually still leaking fluid (enough to need to wear a pad) then you should go in as soon as possible. If you are having a leak of waters then at this stage especially, it's important that the midwives are aware and take appropriate action.

bubble - it doesn't sound quite right to me - I would go and get it checked out - not wanting to scare you but loss of fluid if left can be bad for the buba - and that should come first even if the hospital care is poor - is there another hospital you could go to a bit further away (as if you were away for the weekend or visiting a friend?? - a white lie won't hurt anyone)

Let us know how you get on.

I agree with the other advice bubblebell, if you have a leak you might be at risk of infection which could be bad for both of you, I really think you ought to get checked out. If that ward is about to close, surely there must be somewhere else you can go?

I'm feeling rather pleased with myself today - have just wrapped up the first Christmas presents! [smug]

hey everyone, i went to the hosp today. had a check and a scan they said they dont think its amniotic fluid as my cervix is closed i have lost my plug tho and there was alot of discharge (tmi sorry) and scanned me, then giving rise to a new concern.... the size of my baby, i am 28+2 and according to the scan he already weighs 6lb now have to come back at 36 weeks to make sure he doesnt get too big!
i feel bad tho after complaining to you guys about the care there, today was superb. midwfe was fantastic and i was scanned straight away. i feel so reasured and not as worried about the impending birth. have any of you had big babies? my ds was 9lb 4oz. just interested as to how u managed to get a biggun out of ur ladee bits

glad to hear all is well. your mucous plug will refill as necessary! My DS was 'only' 7lb 15oz at bang on 40 wks. BUT... 3 midwives have all told me that it's head circumference, not weight you have to worry about lol. DS was 98th centile head circumference and the mw's weren't surprised that it took me nearly 2 hours to push him out lol. No tearing though.

Have you had a GTT? Do they suspect GD? Are your dates definately right? I know these estimates can be out but 6lbs would seem huge for this stage!

i know it does seem big sonographer said 'oh god thats a biggy!!' i have been tested for gd earlier on everything seemed fine and when testing urine nothing shows up.(mind u dont know if gd does show up in urine??)

the measurements were bpd 76mm, hc 282mm, ac 241mm. consultant said head was large and that i should just come back at 36 weeks for a growth scan.

is that big do u think? i will try find some web sites that show average fetal weight and h/c somewhere

HI Bluebell, So pleased that all is well with you and LO (or should I say big one!) I found something which says that at 29 weeks, on average babies usually weigh 2.5 pounds. I wonder if they will change their minds about your due date? Like suzi says, I would have thought head circ is more important than weight.

yeah, i looked on baby centre and it says at 30 weeks he should be 3lb so i am gonna go back and see if they worked it out right. my ds had a hc of 51 i think and i had no probs delivering him. 4 hours no stiches and he weighed 9lb 4.. no bucket inuendos pls :O
dates shud be right scan at 12 and 20 weeks were average and showed my due date to be 10th feb altho if using my dates then it would be 8th feb.

I'm gonna be honest and say I wouldn't be worried buble. The liklihood is the baby doesn't weigh 6lbs at all, u/s is very unreliable for weights. About as effective as weighing the mother to guess the baby's growth imo. The head circumference is more reliable and will be the difference between easier/difficult birth. The mucous will likely come back, mine did.
My sister was regularly scanned for her baby's health and told at 35 weeks it was over 7lbs, at 37 weeks just before she gave birth she was scanned and told to expect a BIG 8lb-der. The tiny little girl she birthed was 6lb 3oz! Highly unreliable method if you ask me.

thanks i do agree itdoes sound near impossible. i remember on my induction day the midwives saying to me that it was all fluid.. and to expect a small baby which he wasnt. i shall wait til the 36 week scan and use it as an excuse to see him again :O

thanks i do agree itdoes sound near impossible. i remember on my induction day the midwives saying to me that it was all fluid.. and to expect a small baby which he wasnt. i shall wait til the 36 week scan and use it as an excuse to see him again :O

The average head circumference of a term baby (38 - 41 weeks) is 34 - 35 cm. To be frank a fair few consultants, doctors and even the odd midwife and ultrasonographer spend a little too much time thinking about potential problems and are apt to make the odd comment that hasn't quite passed through the 'tact' area of the brain! Be a little warey of searching on the internet, there are some fabulous sites (mumsnet etc!) but also some rather scarey ones that can help you get things a little out of proportion! (guilty as charged!). Estimating weight by scan is notoriously unreliable. Your midwife will keep a close eye on the growth and the extra scans are a bonus..it costs a fortune for private ones! Sounds like you have a bouncing, healthy baby, but don't worry, it won't be toooo big!

bubblebell... This link has charts for bpd and ac. I used it when paranoid with DS and it seemed to tie in with other similar charts/measurements on the web. From the charts it would seem that your baby has a 28wk bpd and ac. I reckon their calculations have gone wrong at some point...

Bubble - glad you got sorted! I too had a scan at 36 weeks - they said bub was weighing 9 lb 8 and midwife also said - blah blah blah usually unreliable ..... yet I had a 10 lb 14 oz whopper girl! I did have GD though - didn;t show up in any urine tests - only in random blood test at 34 ish weeks - was told to avoid sugar all togehter until birth - lost 4lbs in last 4 weeks so god knows how big she could have been!!!

I am awaiting GTT on 1st dec, but already measuring large on midwife tape measure - so expecting a bigie again, but get two extra scans - not keeping off sugar until told to do so!!!! I had c-section last time though - she would not have got out as had big head - my concern or this one!

blimey 10lb 14 thats massive.

i am goin back next week too as my bump is measuring 33 weeks instead of 28. but all the babies in my family are big my aunts youngest was 14lb,

i do think they have it wrong but i dont understand y if they r so inaccurate they offer 'growth scans' the only way to find out is to wait until i have him. babies that are 6lb make your eyes water as much as 9lb ers so its gonna hurt no matter what.i just didnt want to labour and then they realise that it is a giant and i have to have a cesarean.

no doubt it is me worrying unnecessarily but when these so called professionalstell you things u expect it to be accurate and true

I agree that if growth scans and fundal height measurements are so unreliable then they probably shouldn't be used. At best they can give an indication of how well the baby is growing and developing but they really shouldn't be used to estimate birth weight.

I'm very tiny and at the start of my pregnancy the hospital threw up their hands in horror at my relatively low BMI and spent ages tutting about how 'underweight' women (which I'm not really) go on to have low birthweight babies, and warned me that I'd probably end up having to have lots of growth scans to make sure the baby was growing properly. I'm 26 weeks now and at each midwife appointment my bump has been bang in the middle of the 'acceptable' fundal height range for my dates.

My MIL is an ex-midwife and said that in general (unless there are reasons such as GD) a woman will 'grow' a baby appropriate to her size. It's fairly unusual for a tiny woman to deliver an enormous baby and vice versa.

I'd say don't worry about it too much. All the test, scans etc. we get as routine these days are reassuring in some ways, but can send you into an immediate panic the second something isn't 100% right. I had a tiny trace of sugar in my urine at my last midwife appointment and what have I done since? Spent ages online reading up all about gestational diabetes and planning how to cut out all sugar in the couple of days before my next appointment to try to avoid a repeat of the trace and the need for further tests!

I would agree about the inaccuracy of fundal height measurement and growth scans. With DS, I measured 2-3cm below almost all of the way through. DS was 55cm 7lb 15oz at 40wks. So not small. I was in such a panic the whole way through that my placenta wasn't working!

It is my belief that there are very few babies that are too big to get out. But, hospitals do err on the side of caution on these matters. It's sort of like the breech baby thing - the way hospital policy is these days, you would reckon that delivering a breech baby naturally is impossible!

Sorry if you've already been through this, but does anyone have any opinions on breast pumps and close to nature type bottles?! With DD I expressed using a manual pump, smiled through the bovine comments (ahh..the glamour!) and had limited success! DD refused a bottle with the passion of a hollywood diva in a shoe shop and I ended up breastfeeding forever! (slight exaggeration ). I am looking forward to breastfeeding again but would like to introduce a bottle of expressed milk occasional so I have the odd five minutes to shower! Someone told me you could start when the baby is a couple of weeks old if you are confidently breastfeeding. Any advice?

Sallyally I have no idea about breast pumps (this is my first) but on a slightly related theme - does anyone know that if I already have sore nipples now (especially when it's cold) am I going to struggle even more with breastfeeding sore nipples? Is it worth trying to stop them being so sore now or is it training to stop me being such a wimp? Everyone seems to swear by a cream (can't remember name) once breastfeeding - can you use it earlier?

a friend of mine uses the avent bottles during the day and breast at night. im sure aslong as u feel comfortable it would work. altho my friend manually expresses i would of thought an elec pump is easier. those tommy tippee bottles are supposedto be good too. but never used 1. i never breast fed my ds but am goin to try this time.

I'm planning to try breastfeeding (although not wildly keen on the idea TBH) but to supplement with a bottle of formula for the evening feed. I doubt I'll breastfeed for longer than 4-6 weeks max.

Apparently Lansinoh nipple cream is supposed to be good - a friend in France said her midwife advised using it from about 6 weeks before the birth. I bought some recently just to see what it's like and couldn't believe the texture of it. It's REALLY thick, yellow and greasy. I put some on at night (found it quite difficult to rub in too - not sure how nice that would be with sore nipples) and ended up with two greasy marks on the front of my PJs the next morning. Wasn't overly impressed TBH although everyone says it's the best nipple cream on the market.

If you want to express electric breast pumps are apparently the way forward as the manual ones take forever.

I breastfed for 6 months for DS and tried both manual (NO success) and electric pumps (very limited success) so had to rely on the good ol' fashioned breast all the time.

I found breast feeding really hard, and I can see why a lot of people give up. I know that for me there were tears and sleep deprivation involved but I am still glad I was able to do it and am planning to do the same again for this one. Maybe not six months though...

CurrantBun, if you want to breastfeed I would avoid using formula feed at all if you can, as it will restrict your supply. Breastfeeding is programmed to produce as much as the baby needs, but it's easier if the baby is feeding a lot as the breasts get more stimulation/messages to make more milk that way. Hope that makes sense!

On the other hand, if you want to have the option to use bottles as well as breast, make sure the baby is used to both within the first 6 weeks otherwise it will probably refuse whatever it isn't used to. I used a bottle of expressed breast milk every evening last time round - did this from week 5 so my baby would always take either breast or bottle. Very useful when I wanted a night out with the girls 2 months down the line!

Breast pumps - so many different women have different experiences about this. I used an Avent Isis manual pump and it was fine, but some women find they can only use electric pumps, and others can't express at all.

The Lansinoh cream is the best, but you have to use it with breast pads! It is very greasy and yucky, so you'll get that nasty yellow goo all over your clothes if you don't protect them with pads. And only use a tiny amount, like very expensive face cream. I used it after each feed last time, and never had any problems with mastitis or cracking, but I can't see the point of using it before the birth.

Sorry for long and bossy post, but reading yours brought back all the breastfeeding stuff!

I was just about to reply and saw that TuttiFrutti has said everything exactly the same as I was going to. Agree with not using formula to top up, I fell in to that trap and it totally messed up my supply with DD.

And I had to laugh at the Lansinoh stains, I used Kamillosan (similar stuff, different name) and it did stain, but like TF says, you need to use breast pads (something you won't ever leave home without once LO arrives!)