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Preparing for Baby Series: Premature Labor

June 18, 2009 by
While I have 3 kids of my own there are alot of aspects of maternity and baby care that I know nothing about.
This post is available to hopefully give some information to mamas, soon-to-be mamas and even you dads out there.
Premature labor outside of occasional Braxton Hicks is one of those topics I know nothing about. I have a guest writer for this segment, Samantha Jo Campen.
“As a wife and a mother, Samantha lives with her joyful one year-old baby boy and her husband in the suburbs of Chicago. By day she works full-time in sales, and by night she continues her quest to pamper herself by exercising and indulging in beauty routines that transport her back to the sprightly age of 29. She enjoys lingering with floofy magazines that use personal pronouns in their titles, is focused on Green issues, and has never met a potato she didn’t like. Samantha can also be found toiling away on her personal blog, Back to Me”

I’m a planner. So when we decided to get pregnant I knew that there was only so much I could prepare for and the rest would be out of my hands. It was hard, but I did learn to go with the flow. My pregnancy was uneventful and everything was right on the mark until I hit 30 weeks and 5 days. That’s when I went into labor.
The crazy thing was I wouldn’t have known I was in labor as early as I did if I hadn’t had a discussion with my other pregnant friend two days before. We were talking about Braxton-Hicks contractions and she mentioned that if I ever have more than four in an hour I should call my doctor. Well, on the morning of February 3rd 2008 I had four in 40 minutes and you better believe I called my doctor in a panic. That’s when he told me a few things I wasn’t aware of:
1). They are more common first thing in the morning because of dehydration and hunger. He wanted me to slam a lot of water and have something sugary for breakfast (I had a waffle with jam, orange juice and water).
2). A full bladder could cause contractions, so he wanted me to keep going to the bathroom. (Not a problem being 30 weeks pregnant I’ll tell you that!)
3). He of course wanted me laying on my left side so the baby would have as much un-restricted blood flow as possible (http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancyhealth/sleepingpositions.html). Done!
None of this helped and I kept contracting steadily for the rest of the morning. When I was down to every five minutes we went to the hospital at the advice of my doctor. He told us to expect to be there for a few hours, and I would be given an exam and hooked up to a fetal heart rate monitor. Once I got to the hospital they took a urine sample to check and see if I had a urinary tract infection. Apparently those cause contractions too–didn’t know that either! I remember waiting for the results thinking that if they were positive, this was going to be the most expensive UTI ever in the history of the world. It wasn’t, as I didn’t have one. I was in labor and no one knew why. I was then asked a battery of questions:
1). Had I fallen recently? No.
2). Did I drink or do drugs? Uh, NO.
3). Was I under any unmanageable stress recently? Not really any more than usual.
4). Had I lifted anything heavy in the past few days? Absolutely not.
5). Had any of my blood or urine tests throughout my pregnancy come back abnormal? No, everything was right down the middle boring and perfect.
6). Had I ever had high blood pressure in my pregnancy? No, in fact it was always shockingly low.
The nurses and doctors went on and on getting my entire history to figure out why I was in labor almost ten weeks early. I had dilated to almost 2 cm and that needed to stop. I asked the point of no return and the nurse told me 5 cm. The NICU doctor came up to discuss with us what would happen if they couldn’t stop my labor and our son was born. We were reassured that a 30 week preemie is much better off than a 26 week preemie, so we had that going for us. Their three main concerns were the baby breathing on his own, regulating his own body temperature, and sucking/swallowing on his own. Some 30 weekers could do those things and some couldn’t. If our son was born then he would be in NICU for a month or two. My husband got a tour of the NICU and was able to meet the nurses. I was in bed hooked up to monitors trying not to panic and given steroid shots to boost the baby’s lung development.
After being in the hospital for a week with a cocktail of drugs, I was sent home on bed rest until our son was born. There are a few different types of bed rest, depending on the severity of the symptoms. I was on partial bed rest meaning I was allowed to walk around for up to an hour a day. I could go from the bed to the sofa to the kitchen to the bathroom, rinse and repeat. I was told to avoid stressful situations, such as watching violent or suspenseful television shows and movies or listening to the news. Music had to be soothing. I couldn’t drive or go anywhere by myself (but really, where would I go?). Some women are on fully restricted bed rest where their feet can’t even touch the floor. I was grateful I was able to move around a bit. Getting the mail was seriously the highlight of my day!
Let me start out by saying that before I was pregnant if someone said I had to go on bed rest I would have been all over it. Laying around all day? I’M AWESOME AT THAT. I can rock a couch and my laptop like no one’s business. Bring it!

And for a day or two it’s not so bad. But when you’re contracting and worried about the baby, plus you’re shaped like a whale and no matter what you can’t get comfortable, bed rest isn’t all that fun. Throw in heartburn and some major nesting hormones and you’ve got yourself one tough time. So here are some helpful tips to make it less miserable:

1). Accept help. If you’re like me, asking for help is hard. Watching someone clean your house while you lay on the couch is even harder. But it’s worth it and it makes a difference. You’re stuck inside the house so it might as well be clean and not annoy you. And trust me, your friends and family feel helpless and want to do something for you. Have them make friends with your vacuum.

2). Have a small routine. Washing my face, brushing my teeth, putting lotion on and combing my hair were vital to my survival. I needed to feel like my day was starting, as opposed to running as a stream with no real distinction from morning, noon and night.

3). If you hadn’t already, find a community online of other preggos due around the time you are. And if you can track down another mama on bed rest then that’s hitting the jack pot. Crazily enough I found a woman who was on bed rest the same time I was and we became fast friends–we still chat to this day. We hope our sons are able to meet each other one day and compare NICU stories! (And she and I will share a much needed drink).

4). Do mini-projects. I pre-addressed all of our thank you notes and birth announcements. I blogged like crazy. I had the best home mani/pedi that you could ever hope to see. Read those books you’ve been dying to get to. Have an 80’s movie marathon. Scrapbook. Knit. Keep busy mentally. Solitaire on your phone or computer will become your friend.

5). Remember what’s really important: a healthy you and a healthy baby. The cleaning and the nursery and the painting are all secondary. I had to remind myself that a few times, and that’s okay too.

In the end I was able to cook the little bugger for an extra month, and my son was born healthy and robust 5 weeks early on March 3rd 2008 and weighed in at a whopping 6 lbs 8.5 ounces. The nurses said that if I had gone full-term he would have been around 10-11 pounds. Yowzas. I guess things happen for a reason!