Sleeping on one's right side

[taffywelsh]

Every time I wake up, I'm on my right side and have been there for what I can only assume are hours.
They always say "sleep on your left for optimal blood/oxygen flow etc". Sleeping on your right is fine, isn't it? I don't want to starve my baby of blood and air, obviously. But how bad can sleeping on the right really be?
I also wake up on my back, but my right hip is bolstered by a big pillow to (hopefully) mitigate these baby-starving sleep effects.
what is the truth behind this sleep-position stuff?

ps. am 33 weeks and pretty huge

[etsdtm99]

i've always been told (by my midwife and my former ob) that if you're not in a good position and are harming yourself or baby, you will wake up and move ..

I shift back and forth all night, right left right left.. that is the only way i'm able to sleep .. sometimes i lean forward so my belly is on the bed and sometimes i lean back with a pillow under my hip .. with my previous 2 pregnancies i slept mostly on my back (with the hip-pillow) all the way to the end because that was most comfortable

(i'm almost 36 wks)

[Pippi L.]

I wouldn't worry. Like PP said if you or the baby is actually in danger you'll move. There's no way I could sleep of my left side all night. I would be so sore and never get any sleep (not that I'm getting any sleep anyway...). I switch between left and right sides all night. Last pregnancy I was most comfortable on my back. My daughter was incredibly when she was born (and still is) and I had an easy labor and delivery.

[Youngfrankenstein]

I think, unless you were drunk or on heavy medication, your body will be fine no matter how you sleep. I believe by the time you shouldn't be laying on your back, it would be really uncomfortable to do so.

[lillymonster]

my entire last pregnancy I slept on my back, propped by pillows. Or in the recliner. I had a hard time breathing, so I could not sleep on my side at all, I had a hard time in a bed!

[karmab]

they did these studies way back in maybe the late 70s or early 80s where they had pregnant women with swan-ganz catheters in their hearts, measuring all the most detailed things about cardiopulmonary function, and it came out to be true, that for most of them, there was a slightly better function when they were positioned on their left sides. but the right side was just a tad less, really not significant, and not true for 100%- a few had better function on the right. it has just become sort of conventional wisdom that we say left side, but for most women, the difference is really negligible. laying on your back once the baby weighs more than 2 or 3 lbs, so say for sure by 30 wks, will cut the circulation to the baby, and you will likely feel icky too, and will change position before too long. if you ever have to get monitored with a fetal monitor, you can lay on your left side and your right side, and you probably will not see any difference in the heart rate or the indicators of how happy the baby is (like heart rate accelerations) but if you lay flat on your back, you will most often see the heart rate flatten out pretty quickly and sometimes have decelerations with movement and that sort of thing. propped up in a recliner is prob ok, because the baby's weight will settle down toward your pelvis and not right on your major blood vessls like the descending abdominal aorta and the vena cava that run along your back.

[RedOakMomma]

I find myself waking up on my right, too. It's much more comfy in this pregnancy, for some reason.

....BUT I thought the left side thing was mostly about getting baby in the optimum position? Is there some positioning aspect to spending your resting hours on your left? Or did I make that up...

[karmab]

red oak, that's a really interesting thought. it's not for positioning, but actually, most babies are born "left occiput anterior" meaning the back top of their heads come out first with their faces looking toward mom's right/back (or they come out looking at the floor with their chin to their chest, and turn toward mom's right because that's how their shoulders are lined up to come out.) there may be something too that- it's considered the optimum fetal position for delivery, and if laying on left side is optimum for oxygen to the baby, we may do that more often naturally because it feels better to us as moms, our oxygenation, and maybe that's why the baby settles in that way? but if right side feels better too you, i would follow your gut. if it is related, right occiput anterior is just fine too, and maybe you feel better on your right side because of a little variation in your anatomy, if there is really a connection between how you lay and the baby's position (which i just dont know much about, but there are yoga poses and such that do encourage head down or back up, so it definitely sounds like it could.)

[honeybee]

Whatever position you can sleep in without pain is a good one, imo. In my previous pregnancies, I would always just change positions throughout the night, and switch from side to side. My three boys were born healthy with no problems. I mean, seriously, do you think cave women were worrying about which side they slept on at night??

Follow your body's cues. For me, in THIS pregnancy, I have been unable to sleep on my right side since early in the 2nd trimester. I wake up with a huge dead weight and pain on the right side of my uterus. It got to the point where even if I layed on that side while on the couch for a few minutes while awake that it would hurt. So, I have avoided my right side for this pregnancy, because well, it hurts. I am getting a little tired of switching from my left side to my back. My right is usually my favorite/most comfortable side. But, oh well. Such is the pregnant life.

[MaerynPearl]

Heck, after DH gets out of bed at 5am, I spend the last bit of time I get to sleep alone sleeping on my stomach! (I need his pillow too, to allow me to do it comfortably) otherwise I am back and forth all night... and even once or twice ended up on my back (with DH waking me up because I was snoring LOL)

[Kellyh_01]

Either side is just fine. Just try to avoid lying flat on your back for long periods.

[rightkindofme]

I find my right side WAY more comfortable than my left so I probably spend 75% of the night on that side. If I try to force myself to stay on the left side I don't sleep. So uhm... I pick rest.

[Stitches]

I switch back and forth...if I slept only my left side all night every night I would be so sore I couldn't move!

[Dichotomy]

Great question. Im back and forth between the two sides as well. Prior to pregnancy I was always a back or right sided sleeper. I tried to "sleep train" myself to sleep on my left side during the first trimester. But still was back and forth between the two, and sometimes even on my back.

Now, at 22 weeks, it varies for me each night. I very rarely wake up to find myself on my back...but usually am alternating between left and right side. I just try to start off my night sleeping on my left side.

I, too, heard that if the position isn't working for you, your body will let you know, and you'll move.

[mkpgoddess]

At almost 38 weeks with a child that is still breech/transverse, I prefer to sleep on my right because she doesn't jam her head under my ribs, unlike when I sleep on my left. If she gets jammed, I cannot bend enough to get out of bed and the pain is excruciating, so...I try to give each side equal opportunity, but if I need to pee soon, I flip to my right to give her a chance to move.

[MaerynPearl]

Originally Posted by mkpgoddess

but if I need to pee soon, I flip to my right to give her a chance to move.

LOL you need to put this in the You Might Be Third Trimester thread in the Sept DDC

[outlier]

I'm 33 weeks and also flip side to side all night. My placenta's on the left side, and I notice if I lay on my left side a long time, baby tends to move out of the head-down position. I think at this point we both prefer that I sleep on my right side! I still sleep on my back occasionally but will stop when it becomes uncomfortable.

[the janet]

I'm nearly 22 weeks and had a prenatal today. I voiced my concerns about my sleep position (I regularly wake up on my back) and she said it's fine this early on but that the bigger the kid gets, the better it is to avoid spending much time that way, or even reclined (I know that's to avoid an OP kid as well).

I assume by around 33 weeks, the weight will be such that I will just be more comfortable in a side-lying position. Pre-pregnancy, I tended towards the right. I have to consciously make myself lay on my left. The general consensus seems to be that if you were sleeping in a position that is potentially harmful to your babe or yourself, you would automatically shift. I'm not sure if it's a shortness of breath or just an uncomfortable feeling but it sounds like unless you feel like something is wrong, it's probably not. You can probably rest assured ( ) that you're okay on your right.