Due August 2021 - the final countdown!

[Daffodil21]

Continuation of the previous thread.

All newcomers welcome!

Not long now!!!

@Daffodil21 this is where I'm confused as my friend didn't have these IV antibiotics you're all saying about she just had some oral ones given to her 2 weeks before her due date.

@HopefulB well it does say from hand to hand contact so now I'm unsure. And I didn't have antibiotics even though my waters went and nothing had happened within 24 hours although I had to stay in hospital for a couple of nights just incase.

I am very confused

@lucyrp to be honest I'm not as clued up about it as other people here are. It sounds like she did have treatment though? My midwife didn't say anything about advance antibiotics so no idea!

@Daffodil21 I see my midwife on Tuesday so will bring it up with her then and see what she has to say about it all

It sounds like it might be a different type of infection with a similar name? Or maybe just a different cause. I think even if you're a carrier you don't have the bacteria present all of the time or something like that.

I don't know much about it to be honest. I just remember reading it's something like a 1 in 2000 chance your baby can get infected with it when they are born (in general) and it can cause some really nasty outcomes, but if you're positive for it at the time of birth, then it's more like 1 in 200. So if they know you're positive then they can give you precautionary antibiotics just in case the baby picks up an infection.

I didn't get tested for it in my first pregnancy and I don't regret that decision, it was the right decision at the time. There can be a high false positive rate, and then you're having unnecessary antibiotics, which isn't great for the baby plus it restricts you more in labour. Also if you have it too early your negative result might not actually be accurate by the time you give birth.

But in the second one because we had the issues with the genetic testing I just wanted to know anything and take any precaution possible - this was probably more DH's attitude coming over on me, but I didn't disagree in principle. So I had the test assuming it would be negative and it wasn't!

I didn't actually find the antibiotics in labour to be as annoying/restrictive as I thought they'd be, it was perfectly fine. But I do wonder if the GBS+ test caused the hospital staff to panic and read things into DS2 struggling to breathe a bit when he was born. He never had a temperature and I don't think he ever had an infection. I think the breathing problems were caused by the cord being compressed during the final stages of labour, or it might have been that he ingested too much amniotic fluid in the womb (that's what they said they thought if it wasn't an infection). So he was on antibiotics for 5 days for possibly no reason, whereas perhaps it would have been better to hold off and see whether he developed a temperature before giving them. It doesn't seem to have done him any harm, and since infections in newborns can be incredibly dangerous on balance I think I'd rather that he had them than not, but still. I don't really know whether he actually needed to be whisked away to special care and because I wasn't there I couldn't ask these questions. I just trusted them to do what was best.

The ideal scenario would be for all women to be offered a rapid test in labour because then the information is absolutely up to date and accurate, but unfortunately that isn't really feasible due to cost and lack of availability of the lab staff to do the tests. Currently it takes a few days to get the results through which is obviously too late to be doing it when you go into labour. Possibly this will be offered in the future though.

@BertieBotts it's going to be difficult discussing with the midwife as my friend seems adamant you can't get it off her etc but she's said its strep B / GBS so I'm guessing it is the same thing but still. Now I'm wondering do I even want the test because then I won't be allowed my low risk midwife led unit birth if I do have it 😖ugh but then also I have given birth before so would they know then ? Idk

I really think the discussion must be about two different things here.

Streptococcus B is commonly found in vaginas/rectum and it's not genetic. It can be flushed out of our bodies and return at any point. Whilst harmless to us women, it can be dangerous to babies during vaginal birth and for that reason antibiotics are normally given in labour if the swab comes back positive.

So in other words, technically there is no perfect test for it, as it can disappear and reappear throughout our lifetime many times, including during pregnancy. However, if a swab is taken late on in the pregnancy, at 36+ weeks, there's a decent chance it would not be flushed out before the birth and as such, it makes sense to offer antibiotics in labour.

Coming back to my pants question! Thank you SO much for all your responses, I didn't realise the scar is so low down. I'm sure my mum's is higher, but that might be because she had multiple sections or maybe because she has a tiny bit of loose skin over it. All hail M&S!

Is anyone else literally melting today? I feel awful. Been in bed for 2 hours, luckily baby boy having a party now after being a tad quiet earlier.

Also starting my maternity earlier, it's officially my final week in work, thanks to everyone and the little donkey, honestly WHAT a relief 😄👍🥳 xx

@PurplePansy05 there's no point me asking her if she's right because she definitely thinks its GBS so I'll just have to confuse the midwife. In regards to being in bed I can't think of anything worse than being in bed so sticky and wet and hot 😩 have a fan on all night and not looking forward to this heat for the next week, especially when I'm back in work next week😭

@lucyrp I think she may have got herself confused with a different abbreviation here, or maybe she could have for example had a bacterial infection similar to a UTI in pregnancy as a result of GBS - and she would have had the meds beforehand then, antibiotics. That's totally possible.

I should have said, I'm just layinh on the bed. Not covered with anything as I'm too hot, just me and my kally pillow and lots of water. Windows wide open. Someone give me some air 🥵 xx

No they wouldn't know from a previous birth, unless you had the swab done in a previous birth.

You could ask your midwife whether a positive result would risk you out of the MLU? Since it can come and go so the result wouldn't necessarily even be accurate you could probably just leave it.

I'm mainly doing it because I had a positive result last time so hoping I get a negative one this time and therefore it calms everyone down a bit. Otherwise I think I might not worry about it. I tend to have a policy of if the NHS / my health insurance doesn't cover it, then it's probably not worth doing - there are a few exceptions, but as a general rule of thumb, if it was worth it/clinically relevant I think the NHS would cover it.

I really wonder whether your friend must be talking about something different, possibly with a very similar name and maybe she has got them mixed up. Because I've never heard about it making you ill, it's a perfectly harmless bacteria except if it gets passed to a newborn during childbirth, and I don't see what antibiotics at 38 weeks would do to help either. Anyway no, I wouldn't have thought you need to avoid her or prevent her from holding your baby. Just get her to wash her hands like everyone else - she's probably more likely to pass on a cold :)

I’m not going to bother getting tested for GBS. I had a midwife appt earlier and stupidly forgot to ask about it anyway. Apparently baby is in a great position although not yet engaged. Not sure when that usually happens but I’m 38 weeks now. Got a sweep booked for 1 day before my due date but hoping I’ll have had the baby by then (wishful thinking haha!)

@PurplePansy05 she is prone to a lot of kidney infections and such like so god knows, whenever I bring a glass of water to bed my car decides it is then her water so I have to bring it in a bottle as if its in a glass I don't get to drink any of it 🤣can't even open the window much as my cat is an inside cat and loves to escape through the window

@BertieBotts yeah I'm thinking so as she goes on about getting like sore throats etc with coughs and says its a flare up of something to do with that.

@lucyrp same here with the cats! Both indoor cats so can't leave windows open (not that many open in this house anyway 🙄) and I have to have a bottle of water because one of them claims a glass for himself! He's even been known to drink the dregs of my tea 😂

Oh my goodness what a lot of posts!

I still haven't decided about group B strep testing - my midwife said on balance, probably worth doing, but I don't know if I've left it a bit late now as I'm nearly 37 weeks and the company I was looking at said ideally between 35 and 37, so I'd not get it done in time. Plus, I also often use @BertieBotts's view of if the NHS doesn't offer it routinely, then I'd want to think carefully about if I should do it or not.

I have 4 work days left now (though about 7 days of work to do in that time...), so looking forward to finishing!

Re head engagement - does anyone know if it has any bearing on when you'll go into labour? At my midwife appointment yesterday baby's head was 2/5 palpable and I'm holding onto anything now that might indicate labour could be sooner rather than later 😂

@biscuitcat unfortunately engagement is not an accurate sign of impending labour... Your baby can be engaged for weeks before labour starts. Or it can still be free when labour starts and then engage during labour. All of mine were engaged weeks before labour started, but hopefully for you it'll be sooner rather than later!

Re GBS, I will do it at 37 weeks. I've mentioned before that my trust routinely offer it. I discussed it with midwife who recommended I do it at 37 weeks so thats what i'll be doing. I've always tested negative in the past but DS2 had sepsis at ten days and that was rather scary. Thankfully he recovered fully with no lasting effects but I'd rather not risk another baby catching an infection that could potentially be serious...

Ahh thank you @Ava50x - sadly I thought that was the case! Will stick with my dates and raspberry leaf tablets...

Also for those of you considering colostrum harvesting, I thought I would share this video: globalhealthmedia.org/portfolio-items/how-to-express-your-first-milk/. I tried today and wasn't quite getting it, and all the videos with knitted boobs really don't help me. This one has women actually expressing their colostrum and explains so clearly how to do it and why this way is effective - I managed to collect 1ml from my first go using their technique (could probably have done more but I got bored!)

@biscuitcat Thanks for this, I'll have a look. I actually asked the MW at my last hospital appointment and she offered too, it was a mutual decusion. She squeezed my boob to show me what to do. This has really helped me! We were both very comfortable with it, she was very respectful, asked several times if I was ok with it. So if anyone is worried, it might be worth asking if one of the MWs could show you.

Re strep B testing and the NHS, I read quite a lot about it and when they did a consultation amongst doctors and stakeholders, 93% of the responses were to introduce routine testing. It's been done in othet countries for years. I understand NHS takes a cautious approach to new tests, but this isn't new, it's well documented and supported and with like many other options in maternity care, it hasn't been introduced yet due to additional costs IMO. xx

@biscuitcat that's a fab video, I really struggled hand expressing when needed. Also looks a lot easier with a spoon than a syringe x

I've just tried expressing for the first time and it worked! 😊🤗 I'm so pleased, I thought it would take me a while. Only from my right boob so far, the left one is pretty stubborn. What a lovely feeling though 🥰 I didn't get too much out, only around 0.3ml, but it made me excited to try again tomorrow. Does anyone have a good method of collecting, not the spoon though? I'd like to collect straight into the syringe, but I've lost a bit tonight as it went to the sides of the syringe not inside it.

Also, do you put the syringes in freeze bags in the freezer?

MW advised me to put stickers on each syringe with my name, time and date of when it was expressed, so I'm guessing I can't reuse the same syringe few times a day?

How much should I aim for per syringe?

Soery, I should have asked my MW, but just didn't think about these things at the time 🙈

My baby boy is wriggling away, he seems to have enjoyed this expressing business. Hope this won't encourage him to come too early now! xx

Our BF counsellor for NCT set is up a specific WhatsApp thread just for colostrum harvesting!

Based on discussions there I was going to aim to collect 1ml a day. Pop syringe in the fridge between collections & then freeze in a freezer bag.

Not attempted it yet as I’m only just hitting 34 weeks. Plan to start at 36. Apparently getting supply is all about getting your Oxytocin flowing, so good practice for labour!!

1 ml a day is a full syringe that isn't small as I found out last night! I'd definitely need several goes to fill it up, no way in one go. I've put mine in the freezer last night, so will try a different one next time. Another thing to remember, move it from the fridge to the freezer 🤦🏼‍♀️ I feel like between this (as I will be expressing few times a day), testing myself 6 times, appointments, getting ready and trying to rest, there's hardly any time for anything else. So glad my mat leave starts sooner.

Definitely oxytocin is important, as with everything birth-related. I put nice music on and massaged my boobs before starting yesterday to warm them up. My nipple looked so much bigger after expressing, it's funny. I wouldn't say I'm enjoying milking myself, but it doesn't hurt and I'm fascinated and happy with what my body has done, so overall finding it a new, positive experience 😊

If anyone is reading this pre-36 weeks, I'm sure you know, but just in case, don't express yet as it may bring pre-term labour then xx

Yep, absolutely @PurplePansy05, we were told if you get 1ml from expressing 3x a day you’re doing really well!

I really am in shock how much 1 ml is @HopefulB! Made me visualise the sea of alcohol in ml that I must have drank in my youth without a care in the world lol, shocking 😂 xx

Where'd you get the syringes from? I hadn't thought of doing it before hand..

You can just use the syringe to "hoover" it up straight from the nipple but it's a bit trickier and if you miss/drop it then it's devastating which is why you have the spoon as a kind of interim step.

I am considering it as I was separated from DS2 last time and nobody would give me syringes or tell me what to do so I was stuck trying to get colostrum out with a pump totally on my own - I had to google the technique!! And a pump is really not ideal for such tiny amounts so it all gets stuck in the mechanism. So frustrating.

You can combine several outputs from the same day in the same syringe. But bear in mind that it then all has the same "expiry date" as the oldest deposit. That's the only reason that you would avoid combining. It doesn't really matter for expressing several times in one day, it's more for later - if you wanted to go out at a weekend and expressed on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and combined it all in the same bottle, that's fine to keep in the fridge for up to 7 days. So for example if you did this and then your Saturday night out was cancelled, you've got to use all that milk before Monday whereas if you'd stored it in something like breastmilk storage bags one for each day, the Wednesday milk would last until the following Tuesday and the Friday milk until the following Thursday. But if it's all combined and you don't use it by Monday you need to throw it all away as it can't be unmixed.

For the bags (later) it also allows you to freeze which is great. You can then just defrost however many bags make up one bottle - 2, 3, 4 or whatever, and combine just before feeding.

I think you can get the syringes from your midwife but I've also found some on amazon. I will ask my doctor/the hospital but if they can't give me any then I might just buy my own.