taking it easy?

[LeBFG]

I thought I'd post here rather than premature board because there's more traffic over here.

First pregnancy ended with lovely healthy DS born at 33 weeks. I'm now 20 weeks with my second and clearly want to avoid a second preterm birth. I have just seen the midwife (we're in France btw). I've been feeling the baby move and kick. She just checked the hb and said I was having a contraction - totally painless and all I thought I felt was baby moving. She's spent about an hour explaining how I should do nothing and try to be more 'zen'! Even suggesting making up the downstairs bed so I don't have to climb up the stairs each evening.

I was quite relaxed about everything...until now. Anyone had this sort of advice so early on? Did it help prolong your pregnancy? What's the current approach to this situation in the UK? Any anecdote, evidence or tips gratefully appreciated.

I think in the UK you'd probably be under consultant-led care, given the gestation you delivered at last time. If you aren't getting contractions that you can feel however, I doubt they'd be too concerned about a painless tightening, particularly if baby was moving at the same time. There is no harm in resting and not doing too much, but making up the downstairs bed sounds rather extreme and I don't think there is any good evidence to show that complete bed rest even would prevent an early labour at that stage (I'm a GP). Probably the best thing you can do is to try not to overdo it, look after yourself without going ott and doing nothing, and if you had any actual symptoms yourself that you were concerned about eg lots of braxton hicks or reduced baby movements then to seek medical advice / assessment.

You know mummy2, you're talking about exactly the same things going through my mind. I am under a gynea by the way. She wants to see my every fornight for cervix measurements but the hospital is 40mins away. For one visit, I was able to persuade her to have a midwife visit to my house to do an internal instead.

I do find the 'contractions' occur when baby moves. This happens at night in bed when I'm doing nothing else as well as the day which is a bit confusing. Now the midwife pointed out the contractions, I recognise I'm getting them a lot - probably over 10 a day. This could easily have been the case in the last pregnancy too but I was unaware.

I'm having weekly progesterone shots too so I'm hoping that overall uterine activity is less than last time. Fx!