Tell me about irritable uterus and what my friend can do

1142 Views 7 Replies 8 Participants Last post by Lousli, Jun 6, 2005

Kathryn

Discussion Starter · Jun 3, 2005

My friend went into premature labor at 27 weeks. She's been on bedrest since. She's now at 33 weeks, but she's still contracting every 3-8 minutes. They aren't intense though. She said some take your breath away, but they don't really hurt. She is having weekly OB appointments and her cervix hasn't changed past a 1 and 50% effaced. I told her to drink tons of water every day and lay on her left side as much as possible. Is there anything else she can do to help ease the contractions?

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OnTheFence

· #2 · Jun 3, 2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kathryn
My friend went into premature labor at 27 weeks. She's been on bedrest since. She's now at 33 weeks, but she's still contracting every 3-8 minutes. They aren't intense though. She said some take your breath away, but they don't really hurt. She is having weekly OB appointments and her cervix hasn't changed past a 1 and 50% effaced. I told her to drink tons of water every day and lay on her left side as much as possible. Is there anything else she can do to help ease the contractions?

I would be interested in knowing this too. I haven't been on bed rest for mine though.

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onlyboys

· #3 · Jun 3, 2005

I didn't have it happen so early, but what didn't help for me was bed rest. Hydration made them stop being pinchy, but nothing made them go away. I made it to my due date, though, so I'm not convinced that an irritable uterus=preterm labor=early birth, you know? I was effaced, dialated for weeks before term, and still made it. I suspect that much of the irritable uterui phenom is really just on the fringe of normal.

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shireen

· #4 · Jun 3, 2005

Alternating water with juice or an electrolyte solution may help too; the uterus loves fluids, particularly with electrolytes. Water sometimes passes through the system so fast that you wind up having to pass it so quickly. Juice and the like has more substance to it. My friend also had uterine irritability and the water/juice combination with bedrest helped her too. As a matter of fact, she went beyond her "due date" by a week! Best of luck to your friend.

I also believe that uterine irritability does not equal preterm labor.

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Maggi315

· #5 · Jun 3, 2005

I am having that also. I am going to buy some Black Haw today. I read about that and some other tinctures in Susan Weed's herbal book for the childbearing years. Also increase fluids (alot, like 1 gallon/day), doublecheck for a UTI infection (found out I have one, no real symptoms, showed up on urine stick first), increase protein, hot baths, etc. I'll let you know how the black haw works today.

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thepeach80

· #6 · Jun 3, 2005

Bed rest helped me, even just moderate bed rest (I had a 17 mos old, I couldn't just lay in bed all day). I stopped when I was having ctxs, laid down, and drank a lot of water. I actually stayed in thes hospital a few nights at 34 wks and was 2cm then and 90% effaced. I was feeling better by 36 wks and let myself off any bedrest and delivered 2.5 wks later.

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USAmma

· #7 · Jun 4, 2005

I had this with both my pregnancies. Nitara's was the worst b/c of preterm labor and bedrest starting at 23 weeks. With Abi I did bedrest off and on. It's very very hard, esp as the due date gets closer. It's like prodromal labor from hell.

The good part is that the uterus is so strong from all the cx that labor (at least in my case) was very intense but short. Abi's was about 8 hours, Nitara's 10 hours (both epidural births on my back, otherwise maybe much faster). My body pushed them out with minimal pushing from me.

BTW even though I dilated at 23 weeks to 1 cm and lost my plug, I had Nitara at 38 weeks. She was born strong and healthy. By then I was walking around at 4cm and doing all I could to get labor started because I was insane with the prodromal labor! Abi was born at 39.5 weeks. The doctor and MW said both times that I would have early babies, probably 35-36 weeks. Every time I came for my weekly appt they were suprised I was still pg.

As far as coping, I wish I had answers. I went mad from lack of sleep. I guess the best way would be to see if she can get engrossed in a good book or have movie rentals. I did take some Tylenol PM at night in the last trimester to help me sleep through cx. My MW also said 1/2 glass of red wine was okay at bedtime.

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Lousli

· #8 · Jun 6, 2005

I would recommend that if she hasn't been checked for cervical funneling (like dilation, but up at the top of the cervix) and had a fetal fibronectin test, she should do both of these things. I had irritable uterus from about 25 weeks on, but I wasn't dilating or effacing very much at all. The fetal fibronectin tests I had were negative. She was born early because of PROM, which no one is sure why it happened.

My contractions were helped by rest, fluids, and unfortunately a combination of terbutaline and vistaril (once they got to the point where I had been to the hospital 2x in a week for contractions.) I hope that things work out for your friend and she has irritable uterus and not PTL. It can be hard to tell the difference, and I recommend extreme caution, esp if anything feels "different" or not right. The evening that my contractions felt crampy instead of pinchy was when it turned out I had gone from no effacement to 50% effaced.

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