So now it seems I shouldn't sleep on my right side.

[McPhee]

The only comfortable position known to man right now. According to my midwife, it compromises blood flow, so obviously I won't carry on doing it. But arrrgggghhhh it's going to take ages to retrain myself to sleep on my left. Has anyone else been told this??

I mentioned this 'only sleep on your left side' thing to my mum, and she asked quite sensibly how most women in all the generations before us managed to have perfectly healthy babies without ever knowing about it. I have to say I agree - think of all the women today who don't know about it, or don't observe it, and still have healthy babies. There are so many factors involved in stillbirth that I find it hard to put to much store in this one study.

I've only been told about not lying on your back after 30 weeks. FWIW I try to stay on either side all night, but always wake up on my back! I can't do anything about it apart from turn over.

Sleeping only on my left side would result in no sleep at all (really bad hip ache). I think it's better for baby and for me that I get a decent night's sleep than to fret over trying to stay only on the left...

i could only sleep on my back in preg due to spd, if i slept on either side i was in agony so i slept flat on my back with all 5 pregnancies, i would wake up and move periodically, i think you wake more easily whne preg anway so i dont think it makes a huge difference.

I tend to drop off on my left hand side or tummy and roll over to my right side to fall asleep properly (when not PG, that is).

I manage to fall asleep on my left side now, but tend to wake up feeling stiff and uncomfortable and HAVE to roll over to my right to try and get into a new position. I'm mostly sleeping more on my left than my right, though, so I hope I'm doing OK. We have a pregnancy pillow in the bed and the main issue is if I move around too much it pushes me to the edge of the bed and I wake up clinging to the edge!

Definitely can't lie on my back comfortably with my legs flat, it makes me feel queasy - and I never did sleep on my back anyway, so it's not a natural position for me at all.

I have back pain in sacro-iliac joint, and find that I need to change positions frequently in the night, or I get throbbing, pain and v restless, which then aggravates the insomniac tendency currently!

I try to sleep on left and have even bought a dreamgenie but it feels kind of restrictive. So I imagine I might use it more when I'm even bigger and can't really turn over freely anyhow! (I'm 20w and fairly big bumped already).

I now subscribe to the 'variety is the spice of life sleeping' school of thought, and try to use all positions in moderation!

So glad it's not just me having these issues. I love my DreamGenie, sometimes more than my DP . Well last night was kind of ok, I think I woke up twice on my right and just rolled over again and went back to sleep. Having the pillow between my legs, and hugging the top of it helped me to stay on my side. But then of course once your asleep, there's naff all you can do to stop your body turning over. At 20 weeks, there's no way I can sleep on my stomach. And like marshmallow, sleeping on my back makes me want to puke

Yeah I was told this too, luckily I sleep in my left oh and ds is 6 so that wasn't wasn't recently

VikingLady what is the risk to the baby of me sleeping on my back? I've heard it can be uncomfortable and problematic for me, by compressing a blood vessel, though haven't found this at all. I'm very comfortable on my back and often wake up there, even though I go to sleep on one side (and have to wake up a bit to change to the other side now).

Ive been struggling with this for weeks and its made me miserable, if I sleep on my left its unnatural for me and I get pain in my shoulder and hip as well as god awful cramp, the last few weeks ive just given up I sleep in anyway I can