Research into bedrest and prematurity

KM2008

Have to admit I'm a little froggy about this. It's probably the title of the article and then the call back to the title that really got my goat.

https://www.mommyish.com/2013/05/17/bed-rest-may-not-be-good-for-pregnant-women/ (I haven't the foggiest about how to make that clicky... my sincere apologies)

Sounds like the sample group was culled from a group of high-risk pregnancies, to boot. I feel like a study that assigned bed rest randomly to women with (1) no history of premature births and (2) no high-risk complications otherwise associated with premature births - would be closer to what these folks want this study to show.

I was writing a nice long comment to this piece on Mommyish and my phone pretty much shut that idea down, so I am now having impotent rage, and just wanted to share. With my PTL at 25 weeks and contractions any time I stood up for too long or moved too much, I attribute the additional 5-6 weeks of extra cooking of my boys to bed rest before PPROM at 31 weeks.

Really looking forward to know-it-alls telling me that my bed rest "caused" the premature birth of my twins. Not like I don't always have the sting of thinking my body failed me. Guess I should've gotten "off my butt."

Edited to add para breaks because all of technology is working against me today.

KatFCo

My doctor did tell me that they don't know for sure if bed rest and the 17p shot really do prevent prematurity (partially because it can be so hard to predict), but it's the best thing they can do.

punky917

Just the title of that article angered me. People who have never been through it think of it as a vacation. After almost 13 weeks of bed rest, I can honestly say that it is the farthest thing from it! It makes me so mad when I am told, "Well, at least all you have to do is lay there." I am convinced that bed rest has helped me get as far as I have in this pregnancy. Way to go author for making such a mockery of something that has helped countless women and their babies.

Mrs. Alice

Whoever wrote this blog post really should not be talking at all.  How nice that she has had a full term uncomplicated pregnancy and not had to worry about this.  I have read the original "research" article and am pretty disappointed in it.  There are waaay too many variables involved in the study.  While bed rest may be helpful for one group it may not be as much for another.  Plus women on bed rest are already at a high risk for premature birth they aren't looking at the success of extending the delivery until a later gestational age.  Personally I went on mod. bedrest at 22 weeks due to TTTS and then was hospitalized at 24 weeks with threats of delivering at that week.  I was able to make it to 28 weeks which makes a huge difference even my OBs and MFM were all surprised with our good outcome. 

 

KM2008

Thanks, all, for chiming in. I am still considering sending an email to the author of the piece - the flippancy of the tone just worked me up. The "get off" your butt comments were just ridiculous. But, hey, it's the internet. The study is flawed (which the author doesn't acknowledge straight out, but later says that "stricter" research should be pursued to see if bedrest is even helping women) and like we don't already have wanna-be "doctors" in our lives telling us what went wrong, now this could give someone else room for another comment. Thanks!

zoeyandsummersmom

I don't post on this board much anymore, but I just wanted to say that I wanted to not only throat-punch the writer of this blog but pretty much all the writers of all the blogs on this site.