Experiences of giving birth while sick? (39+5 and have a horrible cold)

[SaraKatie]

Hi! As the title says, I’m 39+5 weeks pregnant and have a really horrible cold - bad cough, blocked nose, sore throat, temperature, ashes, the works! Surviving on 4 hours of restless sleep and sheer willpower. To make matters worse I just moved house today and have no time to rest as I need to get it in some sort of liveable shape before I go into labour! Does anyone have any experience of giving birth while ill? Do the symptoms go away due to the adrenaline or whatever? I’m also worried about passing it on to my baby afterwards, or would they be immune?

You definitely can grow a baby that's too big for your body, otherwise there would be no failure to progress 🤔

Try and stay relaxed about it- as the previous poster said, adrenaline does kick in. You've said you're staying open to options, you trust your consultant, that's all you can do. And none of it really matters in the long run- my little one is only 12 weeks, and that's the first time I've thought/spoke about the labour in well over a month. For something we spend 40 weeks stressing about, you really do forget it very quickly, youre too tired to think about anything much!

Oh, and happy due date!

@KnobJockey failure to progress isn't necessarily about the size of the baby though. It's due to a number of other factors, the position of the baby, the position of the mother, the epidural she may have, environmental factors.

It's difficult (not impossible) for your body to grow a baby that's too big but I just gave birth at home to a 10lb baby with gas and air and it was textbook. The midwives would have recommended I was induced before 40 weeks or had a section if they'd known his size, but the growth scan was way off. Recommendations are made based on guidelines set when thinking of averages or being extremely risk adverse. They don't always look at the individual mother and circumstances and a lot of women are having unnecessary surgery as a result which is reducing the breastfeeding rates and increasing PND.

That's the point here- it's difficult but not impossible. Other factors such as position may have an impact too, but size also has one. For the record, I was also just on gas and air/ water, as they were determined I could have her naturally. Until they decided I couldnt! But regardless, unnecessary surgery doesn't seem to be the case in the OPs hospital, and hopefully it won't be an issue anyway- fingers crossed for a nice little 8lber that flies out in a few hours for you 😁

Please try to see your GP about your chest if you can. I had my third with a horrible chest and ear infection. I was on huge antibiotic tablets. The labour was very quick but I was so poorly. Felt like I'd been hit by a bus and was deaf in one ear for three months.

Yes, but the decision that you couldn't continue to try to give birth vaginally can't be said to be 100% down to the size if the baby given women give birth naturally to huge babies. It indicates there is something else at play. Being in hospital is likely to lead to a cascade of interventions that would have not been otherwise needed, usually because women have had their labour stalled by the journey by car to a new brightly lit and cold, unknown environment and have been placed on their back with strangers hands examining them internally. They are offered pain relief which means they can't move around and are continually monitored, told what they are allowed and not allowed to do, the labour starts taking too long, the woman starts feeling knackered and like she can't do it, she's offered an epidural, can't feel the sensation to push and ends up having a c section. I'm not saying this happened to you, but that 25% of births in the UK require sections suggests that giving birth at hospital leads to unnecessary surgery. The WHO determines that around 10% of births will require a section and the UK is 2.5 times more likely because we have medicalised giving birth when it isn't a medical condition.

Any chance you can draft in friends or relations, or even paid help, to get the house sorted so that you can take to your bed? The best thing for you now is to get as much rest as you can, even if you can't sleep. If you go into labour already exhausted the chances of a natural delivery will be much lower. If it comes to it just abandon doing anything to the house. Can your partner not do the essentials?