PPROM management: Notes from PPROM survival mum
I was diagnosed with PPROM in my first pregnancy. My waters broke at 24 weeks pregnant and I lasted for 12 weeks before giving birth to my baby at 36 weeks. Although, I had been leaking amniotic fluid for those 12 weeks and the fluid always stay at low level. My baby was born healthy without any health issues or complications. You can read my PPROM story here.
After been through PPROM, I know exactly how helpless it feel and how much you want to try to save your pregnancy… your baby. I am lucky enough to have such a positive outcome, the best outcome and far beyond what I could have imagined.
So I would like to share my experience with others who are going through this pregnancy crisis and looking for some advices on how to manage through PPROM.
My first general advices are:
DO NOT GIVE UP HOPE.
Be positive as much as you can. As long as there is a heartbeat, there is hope.
Give your baby a chance to fight to live.
Fight with my baby till the end no matter what the outcome will be.
You don’t know the outcome, so try your very best to prolong the pregnancy.
I did all above and in the end I have got the most beautiful and healthy baby boy to hold in my arms. He is my perfect little angel
Try to prevent infections
- Keep your body clean by taking shower everyday
- No baths or swimming
- Clean your hands before using toilet. I use alcohol hand gel to clean both hands before using toilet and wash my hands with soap after toilet.
- After bowel movement, clean the area with water and soap or use anti-bacterial wet wipes to wipe from front to back.
- Change sanitary pad every single time after you’ve been to toilet and every 2-4 hours even during the night time.
- No sex
Maintain or boost up amount of amniotic fluids
- Make sure you drink plenty of water. I drank 8-10 litres everyday including during night time since PPROMed. I put bottles of water in every room and always sipped waters. I drank during night time every time I woke up for toilet.
Limit the amount of leakage
- No heavy exercise or exercise that makes your leak more. The only exercise I did was walking slowly for 15 mins maximum.
- Restrict physical movement: not strictly bed rest, but walk around less or move slowly when change positions.
- I also quitted all exercise suggested by my physiotherapist for managing pain from symphysis pubis dysfunction (SPD). I leaked a lot after these exercise.
- Avoid lifting of any kind
- No standing for too long
- No organism or sex
- Rest when possible or when you feel tired
Keep well
- Eat healthily, plenty of fruits, vegetables and proteins. Remember that you are still pregnant and your baby is still growing inside you, so you need to be healthy in order for your baby to be healthy.
- Eat probiotic yogurt (the one with good bacteria e.g. Lactobacillus casei) every day in order to increase the amount of normal flora in your body which are known to help protecting us from bad bacteria or yeast infection. If you are taking antibiotics, take them two hours before or after yogurt. Otherwise, the antibiotic will kill off all the good bacteria from yogurt.
- I also had food supplements everyday. I had Vitabiotics Pregnacare Max.
- No food or drinks that contains caffeine.
- Think positive as much as possible. I know it is difficult. You allow to be sad and stressful, but try to not worry about things that have not happened. Be with the present which is you are still pregnant. Try not to think about the worst possible outcome. Keep in mind that reduce your immune system and increase infection rate.
- Make sure you get plenty of rest. Sleep as many hours as your body need
Be aware of your well-being
- Make sure you don’t have temperature. Check your body temperature regularly or every time you have doubt that you may have a fever.
- Look out for changes in leaking fluids. Make sure it is still clear, no color and no foul smell.
- Keep an eye on abdominal pain or contraction. If you do, keep monitoring the duration and the frequency to make sure you are in going into labour. Seek medical advice if you think labour may start.
- Rest if you are tired.
Keep an eye on your baby well-being
- Learn the pattern of your baby movement and get it check out properly at the hospital when you noticed reduced movement or if you don’t feel your baby movement for more than 2-3 hours.
- Do not rely on home fetal heart beat monitor/detector because having a heartbeat doesn’t always mean that your baby is still in a good health.
Trust your instincts, you know your body and baby best
- Ask for medical advice or baby monitoring EVERY single time as soon as I feel or having doubt that something is not right e.g. feel baby moving less, abdominal pain, leaked water chang colour
- In my case, there are many times/days that I felt baby moving less than normal, I called in for baby monitoring right away and every single time it turns out to be fine. But I rater be safe than sorry
It is to save your baby life at the end of the day, and you will have to leave with the decision you have made and the outcome
Keep in mind that, things listed here might have or don’t have an affect on improving the outcome at all. I just wanna share with other people who are going through this horrible condition at the moment how I managed to go through it and have a good outcome.
I hope these advices are useful to you or at least will give you some guideline and confidence in dealing with PPROM. If you have any specific questions or if you think I can be of any help, please feel free to get in touch or leave messages below.