discussion title:
Baby's with Group B Strep?
message #:
2459.2 in response to 2459.1
Hi, I'm in your expecting club! I was GBS positive with my first baby, and he was fine.
The water breaking before labor (called Premature Rupture of Membranes or PROM if it happens at 37 or more weeks) means that your water breaks before your contractions begin, or before the contractions begin dilating you (you can have "false labor" in which contractions are occurring but you're not dilating). There can be a long lag time between the rupture of membranes and true labor, and usually if this happens your provider will put you on pitocin or some other "induction" drug to get the contractions going.
The rupture of membranes often does not happen until someone is well into labor, and even right before the baby is delivered. Sometimes providers will break the bag of waters artificially if it doesn't do it on its own and labor seems to have stalled (dilation is not progressing, or baby is not descending). So the whole dramatic breaking of waters in some embarassing public situation is NOT the norm, although it does make for good drama in movies and TV!!
If your water breaks, the risk of infection increases if you have things inserted into your vagina after this time, such as fingers checking your dilation, internal fetal monitors (both of which I DID get with my GBS pregnancy- and I did have PROM, and my baby was NOT infected). The more things inserted, the more the risk, but it's still pretty low.
There is a window of time after ROM when it's important to get antibiotics started, so if it does happen to you, your provider will probably want you to get to the hospital pretty quickly. Mine wanted me there within an hour.
I have read that anywhere from 18-24 hours is the window you want to deliver after ROM, BUT this is controversial in some circles, and some women are comfortable laboring longer as long as they don't have other risk factors, such as develop a temperature or put anything in their vagina. They would rather do this than get pitocin or a c-section, which I very much understand, since the risk is still pretty small of GBS infection.
I think the 48 hour observation is from the time the baby is born, which is the normal amount of time you stay in the hospital anyway. If you go home sooner, you might talk them into taking baby home and training you on how to observe baby or sending a visiting nurse to see you- I really don't know. Sorry, can't help on that one!
Elaine
