Induction at 34 weeks.

[prncss.booboo]

Hi everyone. My waters started leaking in my 31st week, and didn't realize until 31+6. I have been in the hospital since then so they can monitor my baby girl and make sure there is no sign of infection. Got the steroid injections the night I went to the hospital and the next one 24 hours later.
I was 1cm dilated last weekend, could be more now. And in ultrasounds her head is so far down they can't see my cervix to tell if there's any change. Also had a bit of a show already and been losing my plug since Wednesday.

They have decided to induce at 34 to 34 1/2 weeks.
Does anybody have experiences with this and know what to expect? How long she will have to stay in hospital etc.
She was around 3.2lbs at our 31 week ultrasound, does anybody know how much she will weigh at birth? How much your babies were?

Also, will we need preemie clothes or newborn?
And anything else important I may have missed! Thank you soo much to whoever can answer atleast one of these.

 

[emaritska]

Hi Hun I didn't want to read and run ......there are some ladies here that gave me great advice and info on my similar thread...sure one of them will contribute . Gotta dash as doctors doing rounds on ward!

 

[dizz]

It sounds like what happened to me but I was a couple of weeks further on at 33 weeks (almost 34). I found I had a slow puncture on my waters - they went into infection control mode and started basically preparing me for having a preemie with the steroid shots, talking to a doctor from the neo-natal unit about what to expect with babies of her gestation, seeing the anaesthetist (I was high BMI so had to do this anyway) in case of epidural and keeping me in to wait for the second steroid shot...

Never quite got that far - waters went properly the following day and she was born at 33+6... three days in NNICU, then the remainder of that fortnight on a hospital ward (we'd have been in longer if I wanted to persevere with breastfeeding but I decided to express and bottle feed her that milk in order to get us home before I went bonkers - my hospital's setup was craptacular and they basically shoved you on a standard maternity ward). Initially she was tube fed through her nose for a week and a half, taking more and more of her feed through bottles and having the remainder down her tube when she got too tired to continue.... when she'd gone 24 hours without the tube in and taking the vast majority of what they wanted her to be taking, and had gained or held stable her weight at the weigh in (they did these on her twice weekly) - that was when we were discharged.

Clotheswise - like I say - she was nearly 34 weeks - came out as 4lb 15 I think it was which was a fair weight for her gestation - and it's only now, at 1 month today, that we're starting to fit in newborn sized clothes (she still stops old ladies in the street to be amazed how small she is though) - when she was born initially she was in an incubator in just a nappy, but then when she started wearing clothes initially it was a right royal pain in the rear to get stuff to fit her... Babies R Us did "premature" sized vests which fit perfectly, Mothercare "early baby" fit her initially - but she's now outgrowing these and is into their "tiny baby" and "newborn" stuff... we had a couple of outfits from M+S that were "first size" or "up to 1 month" that fitted her (and she looked gorgeous in - that she's now beginning to outgrow) - but it was very much trial and error, and since I never got the forewarning about it all - we had to dispatch the grannies to scour the city centre for dinky sized stuff... the other stuff she had that fitted her well was some newborn sized (the babygros came up really small fitting which worked in our favour at the time) Jasper Conran stuff from Debenhams - unfortunately this one has sparked a bit of a weakness in mummy's credit card for lots more stuff from there (can't help it - they have the most adorable set of navy blue dresses in there at the moment)! She's outgrown stuff quicker than I'd have expected because although she's small weight wise, and body-wise - she's got very long arms and legs in comparison to her body (dad's very very tall) so things with fitted feet and integrated scratch mitts prove problematic sooner.... don't know how much that helps but that's how we got on with the clothes thing.

Even when we were discharged she was still quite quiet, sleepy and somewhat angelic - it's only as we've got nearer and nearer her being full-term equivalent that she's become more alert (and harder work to get to go to sleep at night!) - and she's currently breaking wind at a volume a grown man would be impressed by sat on my lap being cuddled!

 

[Dinah93]

At 34 weeks she stands an excellent chance of being healthy and fully formed, just on the small side. 34 weekers on average will stay in hospital for around 2 weeks, this is to ensure they are feeding well and gaining weight usually. Our hospital lets the babies go home any time once they are 1.8kg (around 4lbs).

34 weeks is about when they learn to suck, so she might have issues with latching on or taking from a bottle initially, but the nicu staff have lots of tricks to encourage her. My little girl is 34 weeks adjusted today, 6 weeks actual, and we're just starting the process of getting her sucking before trying to get her to take food orally. If yours is struggling to suck she won't starve, they'll just tube feed for a few days until she gets the hang of it.

About 80% of the babies who pass through neonatal need treatment for jaundice. This is non-invasive, if she's in a cot she will lie on a light box for a couple of days, if she's in an incubator she'll get a little sun visor and will have a bright light shining down on her instead. It doesn't bother them, and it's just because their liver isn't producing quite enough (I think it's bilirubin?) yet, but it's almost always one go under the lamps and then that's it - sometimes they need a second go under them but it's not something that has long term health implications.

There is a chance that she'll need a bit of oxygen, this will probably just be in the form of a nasal canula. This will probably only be for a few days and isn't anything to worry about, again, it's fairly common to need a little bit of help in the first few days, but a lot of babies do without, so I wouldn't worry about this too much.

Don't worry about buying clothes yet, the guesses at how big she is can be way out. The neonatal ward will have lots and lots of clothes for her, you can send your OH or mum or someone out shopping once she's here and you know how big she is (my hint is to buy the size a bit bigger anyway, my little girl is 3lbs 2oz currently, but her 2-3.5lb babygrow wouldn't do up this morning due to the size of her nappy, so she's in a babygrow for up to 5lbs).

Hope that helps x

 

[LittleOnes]

This more or less happened to me as well, and in the end there was a great outcome and I now have my son home and healthy and I am practically fully recovered less than 3 weeks later.

At 34 weeks and particularly after steroid injections your LO has an incredible chance of being totally healthy and not needing much more than a NICU stay for monitoring.

I had PPROM at 34+1, went to hospital where they swabbed and it was positive for amniotic fluid. At that I was admitted and started on IV antibiotics with the plan to wait a week until 35 weeks to induce. Everyday I had a sonogram to check basics and in particular fluid levels. I had fetal monitoring for an hour every 8 hours and was mostly on bedrest. I was tasked with drinking a ton of water - and boy did I - probably a gallon to gallon and a half per day to keep my fluids up as I was still leaking.

A test was done and confirmed that baby's lungs had matured (in theory this happens by 34 weeks), and with the risk of infection still there, I was induced on the late night of 34+6 and Jackson was born the next morning at 35 weeks.

He was made to stay in the NICU because of 1) his gestational age, and 2) to be monitored for infection because of the prolonged rupture. It turned out he stayed 5 days bc while he was perfectly healthy and not found to have infection after the first two days, he was having a bit of difficulty learning to suck-swallow-breathe in order to feed, which is VERY common for babies at that age. By his 5th day he was feeding well and discharged home.

Now home almost two weeks he is thriving - breastfeeding like a champ, past his birthweight, and learning the ropes.

NICU is scary at first and so is the ruptured membranes, but try to take comfort in his advanced gestational age and know that there is a great chance he may have only a short stay and no troubles.

 

[prncss.booboo]

Thank you sooo much everyone! I feel much better now Really appreciate everyone sharing their stories.
Had an ultrasound today and got to see her lungs practicing breathing, and she is getting hiccups 2-3 times a day.
My doctor took me off the antibiotics, so I am guessing the induction is going to be soon.

So on average, expect at least a 2 week stay with lots of monitoring?

 

[dizz]

Forgot to add - we only got ONE steroid injection in before she decided to make an appearance - and she was fine with that, if you've got both in you've got a head start on us!

My 2 week stay was very much 3 days on the unit, then on a ward where I was essentially left to it - shown how to do tube feeds and just told what I needed to be giving her when (there's a complaint going in about the lack of support I had doing this when I wasn't confident and had a master nose-tube puller with her record being 5 tubes yanked in one day... but that's another story).

We're also a size UP on clothes (but she's all arms and legs my girl) but a size DOWN on nappies - newborn STILL swamps her now!

We were 2.21/2.20kg (the scales couldn't make their mind up and I negotiated the extra .01!) on discharge... 2.25kg when born - god knows what we are now (she gets weighed today) but she was back up and over her birth weight within a fortnight and a half - which is pretty good going, and we're in newborn sized clothes now at 4 weeks old.... if nowt else - it gets you more of your money's worth with things like moses baskets everyone complains they grow out of like mad!

We've had the jaundice thing - a few days under the lights with a hat rammed over her head to keep the flipping goggles on (see nose tube pulling - advanced tactics for this one), and then it looked like her levels were rising again but they dropped off... since discharge she's had various people looking at her trying to decide if she is/isn't jaundiced (always GREAT when they send someone to assess how it's going who's never seen the baby before) - hopefully that saga ends with the midwife visit this afternoon - but the jaundice-guessing thing's been worse for us since dad has really yellowy-olive toned skin anyway which she's inherited so you can drive yourself slowly bonkers trying to decide if she is/isn't looking yellowy! To be honest - I found the jaundice lights (lots of them hate being all open and exposed in just a nappy under them) and the endless blood taking the worst part of the whole thing (well, that, and the hospital food) - her heels are only just starting to heal up now from all the jabbing at them - but she did manage to slap a doctor with her tiny hand who was jabbing away particularly insensitively (and I didn't half cheer her on on that one)!

One thing I'm glad they warned me about - when she WAS starting to show signs of being born - the entire planet seemed to come into the room because of her being early - I'm glad I got the advance warning from someone on that front or it would have freaked me out utterly.

 

[prncss.booboo]

She sounds like an amazing little girl! Especially swatting at the doctor
It's great to hear she is doing good, and thank you for the jaundice warning. I have a bit of a yellow tone during the fall-spring months, so if she inherits that I will remember not to worry too much about peoples comments.
I can't believe they left you to manage the tube feedings, I didn't even know that was legal honestly.

How long was your stay in the hospital after she was born?

 

[dizz]

We were out after 14 days in total.

 

[prncss.booboo]

Oh so you were able to stay with her?
I have a feeling they will discharge me before her since it gets very crowded here and I've been here 2 weeks already. Would love to stay with her though!

 

[NASHI BABY]

2 of my Grandchildren were born early, Eliza @ 32weeks weighed 4lb 4oz and Declan @33weeks weighed 3lb 14oz. Both children had different journeys and Eliza though bigger spent twice as long in hospital. Declan was in an open crib in 4 days and didn't need oxygen at all. Eliza is now 4 years old and fighting fit and Declan is just a few months old so still in the early stages.
You need to relax and take one day at a time as just like with full term pregnancies and births, they are all different. At the size your baby is now she will have a great chance of only being in hospital a few weeks and developing in much the same way as a full term baby other than being small. Be guided by the hospital staff when the time comes as they will know what your baby needs. Try not to be concerned with the what if's, be positive.
When it comes to clothing there a few different websites that have clothing depending on how small your little girl is born. If you want to look at my site just google Nashi Baby.
Good luck and I hope all goes well.