WWYD if your water broke and no ctx? - Page 2

[MegBoz]

Originally Posted by Birdie B.

My wonderful homebirth midwife had to transfer me to the hospital for PROM once we reached the 24-hour mark, in order to protect her license.

Only CNMs are legal in Maryland - CPMs are completely illegal, but thankfully we have some who practice anyway! (some have licenses in nearby neighboring states.)

But for those who chose to simply continue to practice without a license, I can see how this can actually be advantageous. They face no restrictions on things like suturing, attending VBAC, breech, and twins, etc. (As a matter of fact, one of our beloved CPMs is your single best bet in the area if you want to deliver twins vaginally.)

In any case, I'm another vote for simply waiting, checking temp, keeping things out of my vagina. If it got to be more than about 18 hours, AND i were GBS+, I'd consent to IV antibiotics once labor finally did kick-in. I believe the vast majority of times, labor does begin within 24 hours of PROM, so I'd rest & not stress about it.

Although I'd also consider cord-prolapse. Not sure how you can diagnose that without a vag exam, but I suppose if baby continues to move, the cord isn't prolapsed (& thus compressed).

[AutumnAir]

Well, my water broke at 42+2 weeks, 5 days before I actually went into labour and 6 days before DD was born.

When it broke I experience really mild contractions with a little gush of fluid with each one. That lasted for a couple of hours - I really thought this was the real thing. We called the midwife after a couple of hours, but by the time she got there, despite my doing nipple stimulation and walking around the block *a lot* the contractions had disappeared and I was no longer leaking fluid. MW refused to believe that my water had actually broken, insisting that I had peed on myself (as though I don't know what pee smells like!). I was quite annoyed at the time, but in retrospect it was just as well she didn't believe/want to believe me.

As far as I can tell the PROM was probably a hindwater leak which resealed itself, as I didn't leak any more after that. MW did do a cervical check when she arrived but after that I did the research and decided to keep things out of there, monitor my temperature, drink plenty of water and take Vit. C. I never had any further trouble because of it.

Though I would like to mention that PROM can be associated with malpresentations (as it was in my case - turned out DD was both posterior and asynclitic). I wish that I had know of that association at the time as I would have spent those last few days being as proactive as possible in trying to get DD into a better position.