On Wed, 5 May 2004 18:36:27 +0000 (UTC), (Elizabeth
H Bonesteel) wrote:

(I'm just sitting here hoping nobody's noticed that I'm obsessing over every
little thing right now. ;-) I should take my midwife's advice and stop
reading about childbirth!)

I read another parenting/pregnancy group that, IMHO, often tosses around some
pretty big bits of misinformation. This makes me tend to question every little
thing I read there, justified or not.

One woman this morning said that "they" will need to make sure the baby is born
within 24 hours of your water breaking, because after 24 hours there is a high
risk of infection. Someone else said that if your water doesn't break, "they"
will do it for you at the hospital.

The AROM I know can be useful in many situations when labor has stalled; but
is it really SOP if labor is progressing normally? And is there really a
legitimate 24-hour "deadline" after your water breaks?

I haven't actually had a labour where contractions started before ROM
so I can't answer the second question. However during my third
labour when I presented at the hospital with PPROM (pre-term premature
rupture of membranes - this is not actually as redundant as it
appears, pre-term means before 37 weeks but premature means before
labour started in this instance) the OBs merely started me on
injectible antibiotics since I hadn't yet been tested for GBS statue.
The vaginal check they did to see if I actually did have ruptured
membranes was a speculum exam rather than a digital exam which is
supposed to decrease the chance of introducing infection. And they
monitored my temperature regularly to see if I was showing signs of
infection. Other than that they were perfectly happy to play a wait
and see game until I either went into labour or stopped leaking
amniotic fluid. As it turned out I went into spontaneous labour
almost exactly 24 hours after my membranes ruptured and the midwife I
spoke to said that this is pretty normal. According to her 80% of
women who have a spontaneous rupture will go into spontaneous labour
within 48 hours of the rupture.


--
Cheryl
Mum to Shrimp (11 Mar 99), Thud (4 Oct 00)
and Mischief (30 Jul 02)