Fact or Fiction: Hot Baths...

[MissHobart]

I have heard the advice not to take hot baths/use an electric blanket whilst pregnant, especially in the first few weeks as it raises your core temperature increasing the risk of miscarriage.

My brain is telling me this is unscientific bollocks, the body is perfectly capable of regulating temperature, if it wasn't, women in hot countries would have to stay in a temperature controlled environment as soon as they got PG to make sure they didn't get too hot! Surely a bath at 40 degrees is no different from being in a hot country during the summer especially as the exposure during a bath is normally no more than an hour?!

On the other hand I am 5 weeks PG after 2 x MC in the last 15 months and terrified of losing this one too (currently keeping an eye on some bleeding which panicked me yesterday) and don't want to take any unnecessary risks however I would find a nice hot bath to be very stress relieving and relaxing allowing me to manage my anxiety a bit better.

So great and wise MNers - what do YOU think?

I thought baths were ok because they lose heat fast. Nobody has told me not to take baths anyway. I'd be interested if any studies show women in bit countries having higher birth defect rates. Like you, it seemed odd to me as I'm not a lizard and successfully keep my insides a pretty standard temperature.

The only thing I would say is that women in hot countries are used to being that hot and it might be more to do with the sudden core temp change?

I love a hot bath and have had them all through pregnancy, just not too hot. Theres certainly nothing wrong with a nice long soak in the bath. I'd definitely stay out of hot tubs and saunas though!

I am not convinced about the science behind it, however, the few hot baths(not excessivly hot!) I did have in my first tri-mester I found I got very lightheaded after 5 mins and had to get out. I think it is something to do with the body already using extra energy to 'cook' the bun in the oven and the sudden extra heat to lower the body temperature seemed to be a bit of a shock for me!

Thanks ladies!

Bugs - you're right, I don't want to risk it, I think I will go for "warm" just to try and relax, wish I had a thermometer!

I would love love love a hot bath to ease my back. But I don't think I could relax properly.

miss there are a bunch of us nervously pregnant after recurrent mc over on an antenatal thread, due Sept/Oct if you need some moral support. Sorry I can't link to it.

I think if you heed your body's warnings then you'd probably be ok- like you say our body has great mechanisms for keeping us at 37 degrees- but we often ignore them. Eg I'd sit in a lovely hot bath , after 5 mins I'd be feeling really warm and have to sit up to get my torso out of the water to cool down a bit, then a couple of mins later sink back in. Then when I get out half an hour later I'm the colour of a lobster! If I was heeding my body I should've got out after 5 mins.
A prolonged fever is pretty well known to be a risk I think so overheating is definitely not an over-egged risk to the baby. How much a hot bath raises your core temperature though I don't know. Tbh though your body probably has to work pretty hard to keep baby cool- probably why nc060 felt light headed after only a short time in the tub.

I have heard the advice not to take hot baths/use an electric blanket whilst pregnant, especially in the first few weeks as it raises your core temperature increasing the risk of miscarriage.

With a natural conception it really doesn't cause miscarriages. In fact, if your core (where the tiny embryo is) rose that much, YOU would be the one dying of heatstroke!! Read up on Lesley Regan's book ('Miscarriage') or Jon Cohens 'Coming to term' for some excellent scientific input.

Interestingly, a friend who had IVF was told to keep extremely warm in the first few weeks as cold killed embryos: hot drinks, hot water bottles etc'. But given that at that stage your uterus is deep within you, in order to change your inner temperature, the bath would have to make you quite ill!

They can make you feel utterly dreadful though: I wonder if this + sometimes losses = the two being connected by anecdote?

A prolonged fever is pretty well known to be a risk I think so overheating is definitely not an over-egged risk to the baby.

Again, nope. It is certain specific illnesses - they tend to be serious. Go to the midwife with a temperature and she'll give you paracetamol.

In the past women didn't even KNOW till they were 2-3 months gone, and going to the baths was the done thing: very hot, from a cold unheated house.

And before anyone says "easy for you to say", it is now, a year after my multiple losses. 6 months after I was investigated by a world famous centre and really, really read up on it (and continue to). Hence 'everyone knows' is something I always pick up on... so much of it is plain old nonsense and upsets women after loss.

I don't know whether it's true or not but I read somewhere that the difference bet weeny having a hot bath and being in a hot country is that the body is unable to sweat in a bath to cool the body down.

Hot baths are fine unless you have known complications. The basic position is:

• Nice warm/hot relaxing bath = good thing. Likely to relax you and soothe aches

• Lobster bath so hot you come out red and sweating and go a bit dizzy (i.e. how my weird father likes his baths) = not a great idea.

Bear in mind that a lot of the 'advice' given to pregnant women, even by official bodies, and presented as scientifically supported, is actually nothing of the sort. Often it has been simplified to the point of nonsense, passed through far too many people 'Chinese whispers' style or simply wasn't good science to start with.

What I read was warm baths are fine, hot ones aren't. It's hot when your skin goes red, but usually you'd feel uncomfortable too.

If you're in a hot country the body regulates the core temperature, but it can't do that if its submerged in hot water.

Also high fevers (39 point something degrees Celsius) can be a problem for the embryo too. So then you'd have to cool down.

I read that a hot bath, though not a a bath got enough to make you look like a lobster, was fine as the water cools pretty quickly. Hot tubs, saunas and steam rooms are a different matter as they stay hot. I'm pretty sure it is all to do with sweating as that's one of the body's main ways of regulating temperature...

I mean in that sort of humidity, evaporation cannot occur, so your temperature stats high...

I'm sure it's something to do with the ability to sweat to reduce your core temp. Before I was pregnant I was massively into bikram yoga and did lots of research into whether it was safe to continue. Health professionals said no (so I took their advice) but 'yogis' all said that it was fine as you sweat profusely so your core temp is regulated. I don't think your body can do the same thing in a hot bath. Like you though I always think about mums and babies in hot (or really cold) climates. You'd think they'd have been wiped out by now if you read some of our advice.

This has been freaking me out since finding out I was pregnant (first pregnancy, I'm 12 and a half weeks now). I was doing hot bikram-style yoga every day before I got pregnant and before I knew I was, as it was a bit of a surprise -- I practised every day for the first month of pregnancy at least. In hot yoga you sweat profusely for over an hour and come out with reddened skin, or I do. I have been reading lots of horror stories about spinal tube defects etc, and am still pretty worried till spina bifida is ruled out (I think at 20 weeks), but so far everything looks ok. The doctors at my 12 week scan were pretty dismissive of the risks, but, still...

Anna they weren't worried because it really isn't that risky.

Old wives tales + internet = fear.

Also deeply unpleasant for women with losses or birth defects by no fault of their own.

Thanks.

Yes, it looks like while there is a risk, it is indeed unlikely. Exactly how 'rare' is unclear to me, though.

www.clinicalkey.com/topics/pediatrics/spina-bifida-and-neural-tube-defects.html

"Rarely, maternal hyperthermia is known to cause fetal CNS deformities and is recognized as a risk factor for NTDs"

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491283/

"Various environmental risk factors that have been suggested for isolated NTD are maternal diabetes, maternal intake of anticonvulsant drugs, other drugs with folate antagonist effects (Methotrexate), family history of NTDs, maternal obesity, hyperthermia and lower socioeconomic status.[1] "

Baths are fine. Aim for warm rather than hot (ie that doesn't feel uncomfortable and does not turn your skin red).
I don't think that baths raise your temp as a hot tub would as less of your body is submerged and it cools down anyway.
Just listen to your body and what feels comfortable.

Nearly - Thanks, I'm on the mc thread in conception, not nearly ready to graduate yet, maybe in about 8 months!

When I went to a miscarriage specialist at St Mary's Hospital the first thing he said was stop taking hot baths and your husband should stop going in steam or sauna.

It's not a myth apparently.

hedge - if he was talking about your husband in the sauna, he was talking about conception, surely? What does your husband's sauna have to do with anything once you are pregnant?

Hedgehead May I ask who at St Marys? This sounds completely different to what I was advised there re 'scare stories' regarding MC. They are massive on post-loss anxiety and the prevention thereof, and 'false blame' - or at least have been with me. Although I have had one guy (not my usuals Mr Aziz and Mr Rai) who seemed completely off-message and suddenly lowered my odds of success by 10% (without further tests or 2nd opinion, quite casually)... they were then put back up again by the clinical team, thankfully.

I was advised:
-No saunas/steam rooms but "of course you can have a bath, too hot would be uncomfortably hot" and reassuring me my losses had nothing to do with bathing
-Hot Tubs/jacuzis 'could give you a vaginal infection, you're more prone in pregnancy but can't have the medication' niiiiice
-1 'real' coffee a day or 2 instant are fine - reassuring me my cup of vile work coffee each morning was nothing to do with my losses
-Given specific advice about not grasping for scare stories, just going with the flow.
etc'
Cautious enough to trust them, but very anti-anything-unproven.