Waters broken? Do I need to do something?

[merglemergle]

Ok. Slightly graphic post alert.

38+ 2 wks pg, 2nd pregnancy. Have noticed slight (REALLY slight) trickle down legs etc . Thing is, it could be sweat but it smells like amniotic fluid [big]. Its been going on since last night. I have NO other symptoms of labour whatsohever. Baby is low down but don't think she's engaged today.

Now with ds my waters never broke (caul baby)) so I can't remember if I need to do anything about this, or can I just assume that if somethings going to happen it will and if not, it won't.

I have no desire to drag ds up to the hospital to get it checked out, especially since it will mean catching 2 buses. Can this wait til tommorrow, when I can make an appointment with my midwife at my own conveniance?

I am lazy and it is hot.

Message withdrawn

This happened to me !

Listen - I woke up at 2am a week before I was due with my baby...and I had fluid leaking out...like you it was running down my leg.

I thought my waters had broken as there was so much so I phoned the hospital and they called me in to check me over. They didn't do an internal or anything they just monitored the baby and me for any contractions...nothing was happening so they sent me home.

HOWEVER - they wanted me back on the Tue morning at 7.30am if nothing had happened by then as they wanted to induce me due to risk of infection.

So..Wed morning I went to be induced.

BUT - and this is the big BUT.... 12 hours into being induced they found that the waters were INTACT !!! It seems that my waters hadn't actually broken....but that I had a leak from further up (a posterior membrane leak..or something like this).

So..I didn't actually have to be induced...but it was too late by then and 23 painful hours later I had to have an emergency C-section.

So...be really careful here. Unfortunately I honestly don't know how you can tell if your waters have broken or if you had a leak like I did.

Bit of a bind. Keep us updated

Sorry - got my days all muddled up there...waters 'broke' early Monday morning...and had to be induced Wednesday morning.

I don't know about a possible amnion leak (except to say that I've heard about forewaters and hindwaters, which I don't really get, but might be worth googling) but as far as your dates go - I'd stick to your guns.

I have a six week cycle but usually know approximately when I've ovulated. In the cycle in which I got pregnant this time I knew exactly, as I had been charting. At my booking appointment, the midwife seemed to be utterly incapable of calculating a due date based on this information, came up with a range of due dates from the beginning of September to the beginning of October and completely dismissed my calculation (22nd September). She only managed to enter a date at all because by the time I saw her, I'd already had two early ultrasounds - so she based it on those (in the process suggesting that I was confused about my LMP). You'd think that women are machines, functioning only with a 28 day cycle...

She also suggested that I could have the nuchal fold scan and use it as a dating scan - which I thought was just plain inappropriate.

That was it Red! It was my hindwaters that had leaked. (couldn't remember the name of it)

Have you received your homebirth pack from your mw yet?

I remember in mine there was a stick thing with which you could test whether any leakage was amniotic fluid.

My hindwaters leaked with ds1. The day before his due date I felt a definite trickle and as my waters had broken with my dd I knew what it felt like. They did a swab to test and said it wasn't my waters and sent me home feeling silly as they suggested I had wet myself! I knew I hadn't and it wasn't until 2 weeks later when I felt the same trickle with contractions that I was told it was likely to have been my hind waters.

Emmamamma: do you know how you get hold of one of these home birth packs?? A friend of mine (a doctor, but in a different health trust to myself) said that such things were available, but no one else seems to have heard of it. Are they a nationwide NHS thing, or region specific??

So - does anyone know what these hindwaters are? And how do they differ from any other waters...??

Don't know how hindwater differs from forewaters but it obviously doesn't test positive on the dipstick. I was told that ds had probably stuck his big toe through the sac at the top of the uterus, just enough to let a little water trickle very slowly out. I still find it a bit of a puzzle tbh as I thought all the amniotic fluid was the same regardless of where in the womb it was.

Maybe someone else will come along to enlighten us?

Homebirth kits are made by MWs in your local trust I am sure all are a bit different. You usually get yours at around 38 weeks, dropped off by your midwife - if you ahve booked a homebirth.

Here is some good info on premature rupture of membranes

Merglemergle, have you had it?

yes merglemergle, are you okay? I'm a-worrying about you!

DQ she must be at the hossy!

am I being thick..dont the hindwaters follow the baby at birth?

2nd babies dont always engage in the same way as first either

What happened then mergle?

Hi, sorry, haven't been around much, have been thinking and researching. The "leak" has completely stopped. I can't get an appointment with community midwife til Friday, I've phoned the delivery suite again and they seem largely unbothered, since it has stopped, but suggest I come in to measure BH contractions. Not sure why as I can do this myself-its not like you don't notice them at this stage! They did suggest that I might have peed myself. The thing is, the mw I spoke to said if it has stopped it probably wouldn't show up on a swab, but they would try anyway. I don't want any internals just in case there is a tear-infection. I've been checking my temperature and it is fine. Baby is moving loads, which is more than can be said for me.

The hospital near me is known to have an absurdly high intervention rate, esp c-sections-it is acknowleged within the Trust that it is too high. I have a huge hatred of hospitals and never want to give birth in one again. Having seen the conditions on the maternity ward, I'm not suprised MSRA is on the increase. They don't even have ANYWHERE to change nappies, AND ban you from taking babies in the shower room to do it. The ward was full of bluebottles when I was there last. Yuk. I also need to avoid an apidural due to spd/sciatica. I live far from family and most friends and just don't have the option of limited mobility with 2 young kids!

I've been looking on homebirth.org and the ARM websites and thinking a lot.

So my strategy is to keep checking my temperature to make sure I haven't got an infection, but otherwise just talk it over with my community midwife on Friday. I am very much motivated by the fact that she is very very experienced and very pro-homebirth, etc, whereas I have had bad experinecs of hospital midwives. I will carry on reading and thinking, but ultimately this baby IS my responsibility, and if the midwives cannot take the time to discuss things with me properly so that I can make an informed decision then I will have to do the best I can myself. As I say, if I was in agreement about the dates it might be different, but I honestly think that the due date could be easily up to 2 weeks later, and maybe a bit more, meaning she WOULD be technically premature if born now.

Thanks for all the advice and support, even if I didn't take all of it, it has really helped me think through what to do!

Re the dates: from conversations earlier in the pg with hospital mws-they absolutely will not budge and apparently my dates are those of the scan. And they WILL induce me, they say (I did think of asking if they planned to section me first). So I am going to have to get into a fight here and I don't want to be doing that. If I go over their dates but not mine, I intend to insist on a hb still (if I go over my dates it is another matter). However, I get the impression that this will not be plain sailing.

(And am not at all motivated by the fact that I have only just started buying/organising/knitting etc for the baby!)

Here is where I want to give birth-

merglemergle - only just caught up with this. All the best for Friday's appointment.

No advice regarding the fluid but just wanted to say that strictly speaking you cannot forced to be induced. I eventually was with my 2nd but asked for 2 sweeps and my induction date to be moved forward from the Friday to the Monday. I gave them plenty of notice and they were OK about this. I didn't have a discrepancy with my dates though except perhaps a few days. dd was due on 1st April and not born till the 16th so was 15 days late and just fine. Also because the induction was so late it was extremely easy. Of course I had to go into hospital but it was plain sailing, just one dose of gel on my cervix and then nature took over. The midwife told me beforehand (when doing my sweeps) that my cervix was ripe so that was a good sign. Induction doesn't mean problems by any means - it tends to be difficult if performed early. So leave it as late as possible. Also I got out very quickly afterwards as dd was big and healthy and feeding well. I know it wouldn't be a home birth but may not be the nightmare you predict. Of course it is best to go into labour yourself so here's hoping. I hope for this myself this time round.

Mergle - the link I posted will help you I suspect
Ina May is coming to Edinburgh on 29 October if you are interested
Look forward to seeing how this all ends

my waters broke at 34 weeks great big gush then constant trickle for the next three days when labour started. I was told they would wait or a fortnight before induction so I was 36 weeks. I was out on antibiotics as precaution and DS was on them until tox screen came back clear. Must say I am shocked at you being unable to see a midwife till friday what happens if it is your waters and something nasty happens, i was led to believe it was very important to check. I also had to go to hosp in ambulence and not in car

That's because at 34 weeks you have a higher risk of cord prolapse when your waters go like they did !

Sorry, pupace, meant to post, checked out the link and it was really helpful and clarified a lot. Ta.

Ooooh...I would LOVE to see Ina May talk. That would be so cool. Also, I went to uni in Edinburgh so may be able to dig up old friends to stay with...maybe not so much with 2 kids though...

I've been toying for ages with the idea of midwifery or doula training or something similar...so I can even maybe justify a trip on these grounds! Do you have any more info on it?

It is the Doula UK study day... the tickets will be available from early July - if you CAT me I'll keep you posted

dont get pushed into any thing you dont want to do..fight them..its your body and baby and as long as your both o.k why do they have to interfere? my ds was 19 days late and labour started on its own and dd was 10 days late although i did use homeopathy to kick start the second one as i was fed up of waiting .. but the most important thing is you do what your instincts tell you to..

My waters broke early for both my two (both two weeks early). First had meconium staining, and I ended up with a c-section that afternoon instead of planned homebirth. Second was clear. We went back and forth to the hospital for the next three days, with me wearing nappies... However they weren't worried because there was plenty of water around the baby (I think I was producing more) and all of the monitoring was fine. Ended up three days later having an induction and eventual c-section, as I never went into labour. I have to say that they were very supportive through the whole thing, and happy for me to make the choice -they were also very busy, so happy for me to keep hanging on. I thought that the waters leaking felt most like a really heavy period, with more coming out if I moved vigorously (which I did quite a bit to try and get things going!). With the clear one, it was like slightly slippy water, definately not like pee - and if you were peeing that long I think that a)you'd need to be drinking a lot of water and b)you'd be sore.

Best of luck with your delivery - I hope that you get the home birth you want.