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3rd Trimester
VENT: Hospital rules re: water breaking
In our birthing class we were told that if my water breaks I will be confined to the bed. This would include no sitting straight up. It's because of the risk of an umbilical cord prolapse.
I posted last week asking if anyone else had been told this. Afterwards I felt pretty good about it, thinking that I had misunderstood. Not the case 
I'm really bummed about this. I'm trying to relax and get past it. I just feel like now it's a luck of the draw: if my water doesn't break I can move around and work towards the med-free birth that I'm hoping for. If it does break I feel like it's going to be an uphill battle.
Anyway, just wanted to vent. DH and I had a fight about it last night so I'm really frustrated. Thanks for listening.
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Re: VENT: Hospital rules re: water breaking
I need to ask about this.. hopefully it won't be an issue. My water didn't break last time at all.. I was completely dilated and then they broke my water so I could push her out.
I would NOT want to be confined to the bed the whole time.. that sucks.
I agree with this! I honestly didnt think they can force you to do anything. Its YOUR body so your decision. I can see if they wanted to make suggestions but not telling you what you can and cant do.
I switched hospitals and OBs at 30 weeks for this reason (among a few others). I thought the 'now walking around' policy was ridiculous. They don't even let you get up to pee! You have to use a bed pan - even if you're only 2 cms dialated!
You still might be able to switch at 32 weeks, if you were really unhappy about the choice.
You can always talk to your OB about it, but odds are you'll be dealing with the L&D nurses most of the time, not your OB (he'll probably just show up right before you deliver...)
I'm so sick of hearing about hospital rules - screw them - its your bodyand your baby. they can't force you to do anything - like a pp said, what are they going to do, tie you down? You and DH need to be on the same page and he has to be there to stand up for what you want. I've already told my normally rule following DH that if i say I want or don't want something he needs to make it happen without so much as a question to me. The only reason I will follow a 'hospital rule' is if my doctor tells me there is something medically dangerous for me or my baby.
Just as an example - my hospital has a rule of taking the baby for monitoring for FOUR hours after birth. I plan on debating this at our hospital tour but if they don't give in - I will just not hand my baby over to them.
Good luck - but definitely get on the same page with DH and let him know what he needs to do for you
That does not sound right to be. Ask your OB at the next appointment. And make sure you get your requests down in wiriting in your birth plan. If there is no medial reason (they do have ultrasound they can use at teh hospital) you should be just fine.
They absolutely can force their asinine rules. I've heard of people having security called on them over things like this. Court orders, I've even heard of a nurse calling Child Services and getting them involved for this or other things that are hard to prove or disprove. This aggravation is NOT something you want to deal with while laboring! This was a policy at my hospital, but if your care provider put a note in your chart the nurses had to let you do what they said. (Get a copy of any notes that go against hospital norm to take with you in case they "can't find your docs orders!")
If this is a policy that you can't get your OB to bend for you, and for him to put it in writing then I do STRONGLY suggest you look for other options. IE new ob, new hospital.
This was one of the other reasons I switched hospitals! I hired a doula and she told me about the 'no walking around/being confined to the bed' rule at my old hospital, and also told me it was a huge battle to get the baby to stay in the room with mom for even 1 hour after the birth.
This is not the case at every hospital though. I would recommend looking into switching. Why put yourself through a battle with the L&D nurses if you don't have to?
If you can't switch, then the PPs are right - it's YOUR body and your baby. You can walk right out of there if you want to! They don't own you.
You know, I'm not into the whole natural childbirth/home birth thing, but there are parts of it I totally agree with. Only because rules like this are ridiculous. Cord prolapse is really rare, I thought. Gheesh, laboring in bed is not the way nature intended you to go. I was confined to bed due to my son's heart rate dropping. They needed me on the monitors constantly. EVERYTHING in my body was telling me to move - walk, crawl, bounce, squat, etc. It was very primal. Anything but lay in that bed. This time around, I'm trying for a vbac. Doctor told me they will want to get heart tones every 15 minutes, so I can get up and move, but they will want to keep an eye on me since vbac is considered high risk. Great.
As far as the water breaking, I know that is not the norm at my hospital. I've had friends whose water broke and they were not confined to bed. One just went natural there last week and they were very accomodating, even though they had to give her the nurse manager as her nurse because no other nurses had experience with natural mamas. That is how rare it is!
We live 45 minutes outside of STL (Washington). I'm at St. John's in Washington. I don't know if Big St. John's would be any different. Unfortunately Washington doesn't have too many choices.
I really like my doc, but as PP said, he'll just be there in the end.
Thanks all for the support! I'm going to have a long talk with DH about it and I have an appointment Friday so I can talk to my doc about it.
Exactly. And if your OB is in a practice with multiple doctors, you may not have a great chance of getting him/her anyways (yes another reason why I switched - because I knew that even if I did get my OB to agree to my wishes, I only had a 1 in 6 chance of getting him when I went into labor anyways!)
But the suggestion to get him to put everything in writing, and get copies of his orders, is a good alternative if you don't have any other good options for switching at this point.
If you're really interested in a med-free birth, GET OUT OF THAT HOSPITAL. Yes, you can talk to your OB about THIS rule and get it in writing that it's to be ignored and everything. But this is a clear sign of a hospital that is NOT friendly to natural birth. I can almost guarantee that even if this particular thing is not an issue, there will be some other battle during labor. And labor is draining enough without having to fight hospital staff on top of it.
It's worth driving to get to a friendlier hospital. I was planning to deliver at a hospital that was easily 25 mins from my house with no traffic (could be up to an hour with traffic), bypassing the one that was less than a mile from my house because it has a c-section rate over 50% and a reputation of being very unfriendly to natural birth. if If there are no friendlier hospitals within a reasonable drive, do you have any out-of-hospital options?
If all else fails... hire a doula, FOR SURE. She can run interference with the hospital staff while you and DH focus on the important thing: Getting your baby out!
Mommy to DD1 (June 2007), DS (January 2010), DD2 (July 2012), and The Next One (EDD 3/31/2015)