Coping with Polyhydramnios

This is a guest-post about polyhydramnios by Alice Thompson who publishes at www.sloely.com

“Oh my gosh, you’re enormous!”.  

I wasn’t even 8 months pregnant when my shocked friend shouted out this choice greeting, but I was already carrying an extra 25kg (55lbs) on top of my pre-pregnancy 55kg (120Ibs).  

That’s a LOT of extra weight to carry when you’re 5’2. 

I was big right from the start of my pregnancy, but after a diagnosis at 29 weeks of polyhydramnios – too much amniotic fluid – I just ballooned.

It’s hard not to be freaked when you’re told you’ve got polyhydramnios (PH).  

In most cases there’s no known cause or treatment.

So lots of mums-to-be do exactly what I did, which was go home after diagnosis, Google it and scare themselves silly when they find it significantly increases delivery risk and is associated with lots of fetal complications that may not be discovered until after birth.  

There are times when “Dr Google” is really not a good idea, but whatever anyone tells you – you will look, it’s human nature.

If you’ve been diagnosed with polyhydramnios, you  have to hold onto the the good news, which is that even in 50% of severe cases there are no complications.  

But in my experience however hard you try this, you are still likely to be incredibly anxious and more practically, hauling all that extra weight around is no easy matter.

Although – except when associated with gestational diabetes – there is no treatment there are things you can do to handle the anxiety and the weight and to reduce some of the delivery risk.

I spent the last trimester of my pregnancy more or less stuck at home looking like a beached whale and feeling frightened.

So in this post I have tried to bring together a list of all the tips that I think would really have helped me cope with PH a bit better.

Coping with Polyhydramnios

What to expect

I think the first thing to accept is that you are probably not going to have a beautiful blooming, skipping through the meadows, picture-book pregnancy.  

You will almost certainly be enormous – typical weight gain for a non-PH singleton pregnancy is 12 kg (25 Ibs) but with PH you could be double this or more. 

In addition you may:

• Be very anxious
• Struggle for breath because your diaphragm is being squashed by your uterus
• Have swollen legs
• Have swelling over the rest of the body
• Have painful knees because of massively increased weight
• Have limited mobility because of breathlessness and sheer weight you’re carrying 
• Receive a fair dose of unwelcome and disapproving comments about your “weight”
• Abdominal pain from stretching of your stomach
• Suffer from bad heartburn
• Have frequent braxton hicks from early in pregnancy
• Not be able to work as long as expected
• Your bump may be very sensitive to pressure on it

In the last few months you probably won’t be able to do much very physical to get ready for the baby and even if you feel you can you almost certainly shouldn’t!

 I went into early labour at 29 weeks – very fortunately they managed to stop it – from scrubbing the floors!  So:

• Don’t feel guilty about needing rest and help
• Get as much rest as you can
• Avoid going up + down stairs as much as can – get everything in one place and stay put
• Get other people to do as much as they can for you and DO accept offers of help – the builders across the road felt so sorry for me that they would nip to the shop for me 🙂
• Do only short bursts of housework or anything else physical
• Try some relaxation techniques – I found a hypno-birthing CD helpful – that can ease your breathing and reduce anxiety
• Follow general advice on heartburn – eat small amounts regularly, don’t lie down after eating and avoid acidic and spicey food
• Look out for under bump jeans etc and loose dresses if your bump feels really uncomfortable with any pressure on it

What the medical team may do

In the majority of cases both these will be negative and – although there are some fetal abnormalities that can’t be picked up by the scan – the focus for you and the medical team will be to minimise the delivery risk.  

Only rarely do medical teams drain fluid as there are additional risks associated with this.

In most cases your medical team will want to monitor you but in my experience it’s easy to fall between hospital consultants and outpatient midwives with neither really taking responsibility.  

Unfortunately, my hospital failed to advise my midwife how she should monitor me so when she finally sent me back to the hospital at 37 weeks it was all a bit of a panic.

Even if the diabetes and scan results come back negative I would push your medical team to explain in full what they will do for the rest of the pregnancy, in particular:

• What will they monitor? (ideally midwife should be monitoring girth and weight as this will  be easiest indicator of further rapid growth in fluid – by default UK midwives no longer measure weight so post diagnosis push yours to do it if she’s not)
• Who will be responsible for monitoring?
• What symptoms you should look out for?
• Whether you should continue to work?
• Whether they will want to induce labour pre-term? (see below for why)
• When will they make a decision on inducing labour pre-term?
• Who will make the decision?
• What you should do if your waters break?

Managing the delivery risk

Many PH pregnancies don’t go to full term and a lot of medical teams want to hospitalise you pre-term and induce early, so that they can manage the labour.

This is because there is an increased risk of a prolapsed cord (umbilical cord is washed out before baby), the placenta coming away and / or the baby not engaging and post-delivery haemorrhaging.

With this in mind it makes sense to:

• Pack your hospital bag early
• Get everything ready for the baby early
• Have an emergency procedure agreed with family & friends 
• Know what to do if your waters break
• Know what to do if the cord prolapses

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