Waters breaking...

[midget em]

I'm planning on a home water birth and I've recently had 3 friends give birth, none of which were completly straight forward.
I'm reasured that if anything was to start going wrong at home and I needed assistantance I can easily be transfered to hospital. This helps to put my mind at rest for 2 of my friends complications.

Sorry for the ramble but here's my question....

If my waters were to break and then natural labour didn't proceed what would happen? Could I still have my homebirth or even a water birth in hospital?

This happened to my 1 of my friends and she ended up on the drip to help her along. She was told baby needed to be out within 48hours due to a risk of infection.

Any ideas?

 

[Mervs Mum]

(you'll start to notice a recurring theme here..... )

Different areas have different policies regarding the time that waters break to when they would ADVISE induction of labour. NICE guidelines were previously upto 96 hours and hospitals would 'allow' any where between 24 and 96 hours. For the most part they prefer babies to have either made an appearance or be close to being born within about 24 hours BUT unltimately it's your decision. I know women who have waited 48 hours and even a week or more in some cases. So long as there are no signs of infection you can choose to wait and see. Depending on the time of day they break will often affect the onset of ctx. So if like me they go in the morning, women often find there is no signs of ctx till evening time. Guppy just had this. If waters go and there are no ctx some worm will chose not to let the Mws know when they went as they don't want to be on the clock and wouldn't be calling them to attend of there are no ctx anyway. It's worthy of note that only 10% of women have a spontaneous rupture of membranes BEFORE the onset of ctx so its actually unlikely to happen let alone happen and you not labour within a reasonable amount of time

 

[midget em]

That fantastic MM thank you.
I knew I could relay on a reply from you, you're so clued up hehe.

I like the 10% fact. She was just worried for me bless her but I didn't have any come back. Now I'm armed I'll let her know.

 

[ChrissiK]

At some point they will recommend monitoring your temperature every 4h to check for infections. The less stuff goes into your vagina (exams!) the lesser the risk of infection!
With preemies they are quite happy to have them stay inside for a week or longer, so why should't you get to try that!?

 

[Mervs Mum]

It's my job to be clued up

And as chrissy said I had a client who's waters went at just before 36 weeks and she was 'allowed' to go over a week as the baby wasn't term.....it's about the individual's risks rather than the one size fits all approach.

 

[Arcanegirl]

This happened with my first and i was advised to go in after 24 hours, though it was left up to me. We went in and LO was born 36 hours after waters breaking.
If this happens again i will be choosing to stay at home, especially finding out that they swabed me for Strep B and came back negative so the mw told me they would be willing to let me go longer.

 

[Ju_bubbs]

My waters went at tea time at 37+6 on #3.. I wasnt having a homebirth, so I went to L&D to get checked out wasn't contracting or anything so they wanted to keep me in 'just incase' and induce the next day.. I pretty much just refused, and said I was going home, but would be happy to come back for check ups. So they had me back twice a day to check for infection and monitor baby for half an hour, and labour started naturally at 3am at 38+2. So yeah... tell them to piss off lol

 

[Sam Pearson]

I agree witih everything Mervs Mum said. The most important thing IMO if your water break to avoid infection is to keep other's people's hands out of your vagina.

 

[NaturalMomma]

Where I live they don't put a time limit on you if your waters break past 36ish weeks. Yes your chances of infection increase, but there are so many ways to keep the chance low. Don't put hands, tampons, penis or other objects in your vagina. Wipe the toilet seat down with a mild disinfectant before using it, or use disposable toilet seats or don't actually sit on it. Keep drinking plenty of fluids because that helps you to keep replacing the lost amniotic fluids. If you're wearing a pad make sure to change it every so often to keep it fresh, as well as underpants.

 

[ljo1984]

My first baby my waters broke and I ended up on syntocin drip 24 hours later which spiralled into epidural followed by forceps. Since then I've don't the research and wish I'd of refused the drip. I was contracting, it just wasn't quick enough for them (drs!!) risk of infection bla bla bla. I'd made the decision that if my waters went at home I wouldn't inform mw if contractions didn't start for a while (if they were clear) I'm a nurse so know infection indicators so would wait it out for as long as I felt comfortable to get my hb. Hospital policies drive me mad ha ha. Xx

 

[lozzy21]

My waters went at 35+2 and they were going to leave me untill 37 weeks before inducing me. She decided to come two days later on her own.

 

[pimento1979]

Yup, read my birth story Essentially, my waters broke, nothing happened for 44 hours- pressured for induction, antibiotics, VEs- all declined. I went in for monitoring (although when I showed up they were all ready to induce me) but I went home afterwards.