Trish: [00:00:00] My name is Trish Ware and I am obsessed with all things pregnancy and birth and helping you to navigate with the practical and the magical seasons of this journey called motherhood. I'm an all day coffee sippin mama of seven. I've had the amazing privilege of delivering many babies in my 15 plus year career as a labor and delivery nurse and as a mama of seven.

I'm here to help you take the guesswork out of childbirth so you can make the choices that are right for you and your baby. Quick note, this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not replace your medical advice. Check out our full disclaimer at the bottom. of the show notes.

If you guys are just joining, I was a liver and delivery nurse for over 16 years. I did most of that as a travel nurse to some [00:01:00] of the highest risk, high risk delivery places in the country. What I want you to do is I want you to take a nice deep breath in.

Let's go in and then release it. Just let it go. Your body was made to birth this baby and girl, it's gonna do it. It's gonna do it. So beautifully and I'm so excited that you're here because I am obsessed with birth. We're going to talk about your water breaking today and I've got bullet points so I don't go off because you see how I do.

We're going to be talking about your water breaking

so we're going to talk about some different things you can do if your water breaks. Okay, so the very first thing we're going to talk about is, is it actually your water?

Because this happens a lot with my students and with my patients that I would see in triage, is they think that their water broke, but it's not actually your water. So I'm going to give you guys some tips on how to tell [00:02:00] if it's your water. Or if it's P or if it's vaginal discharge because at the end of pregnancy, those hormones are raging and you're going to have a lot more clear liquidy vaginal discharge as well.

Just the truth here ladies. We have all the fun. Okay, so how do you tell if it's your water that broke? Number one, Pee smells like pee. Number two, amniotic fluid has a very distinct different smell. However, if you're not up to smelling your underwear, then I'm going to give you some more tips. So one of the things you can do before you get to that stage is buy these babies.

These are the best pads. If it is your water and the baby is not well applied, you are going to be leaking a lot. So grab one of these, put them on. And then you're going to take a big cough, so just if you do that your water should come out into the pad. If it's not your water [00:03:00] then you probably won't leak when you cough.

Now there is a chance that it is still your water and it doesn't come out when you cough. If the baby's head is down well applied on the cervix you may not leak as much, as much water. So again big cough. The other thing you can do is Sit on your birth ball. But the thing about your amniotic fluid is that when your water breaks, it's going to continue to come out until the baby is really well applied on the cervix.

And a lot of times in the beginning when your water breaks, you're like, is this my water or not? So again, it's going to come out consistently every time you move, when you change positions, if you cough, that's why we have you guys do a big cough just to check.

So buy these big pads. Okay, so now let's talk about If it is your water, do you have to rush into the hospital? So most of you guys probably think you do, and a lot of providers will tell you that you need to come right in. [00:04:00] But actually, you do not have to rush in. However, there are some difference, there's some rules for that.

And I've got them, I've got some of them penned in my feed. So let me just tell you number one, if you are low risk and the baby is doing good and you're doing good You do not have to rush in if your water breaks So what we recommend to our low risk mamas that don't have anything weird going on nothing else and we're gonna talk about those weird things Then they can stay at home and wait for labor contractions to start Because a lot of times when your water breaks at home Your contractions have not started yet, so the rule of thumb that we give our students now again, you do you and I'm not your nurse, so you decide what's best for you.

But what we recommend to our students, especially our ones who have a labor bat signal, which is something that we do that no one else does. And what that is, is when you join my classes, you have an option to [00:05:00] add on your labor bat signal. So if you're going to be using a Labor Bat signal, your Labor Bat signal is a group telegram chat with me and two doulas.

So if you get into your telegram chat, it starts at 36 weeks and goes to eight weeks postpartum. And you're like, Trish, I think my water broke. And we figure out it probably is your water, like two of my students today. Then we're going to guide you to stay at home till about 10 to 12 hours after your water breaks.

Now you want to make sure you write down the following. So think of the word coat, the color. The odor, the amount and the time because we want to know when your water broke because around 24 hours you start getting more high risk for infection. Okay, so your water broke. We're noting the time, the color, the amount, the odor.

It shouldn't have a weird smell. It shouldn't have a bad smell. It just has a little different of a smell. You're going to write down how much came out. Was it a lot? Was it a little? Some of you guys might have a trickle because we call it a high leak. So maybe the leak was up top of [00:06:00] your uterus or up here and it's just coming out slow.

Some of you guys will have a gush like you might even hear it pop. So that's a pretty strong sign that your water broke. Okay, so you've noted all this down. You're not having contractions. What we tell our mamas to do is if it's late at night or the middle of the night, sleep for a little bit longer, sleep for a couple hours.

Then if you're still not having contractions, we're going to bust into, let's get your body into labor mode. And some of the things that we can do is we can do, which I, I've got. Nipple stimulation. You can do the mile circuit. You can do sideways stair lunging, which will open up the pelvis some more. You can get on your birth ball.

If the weather is okay, you can go for a walk. There are things you can do to help get labor started. My favorite is nipple stimulation. And we, we, we teach a little bit of a different way inside of my classes. And if any of you guys want to join the classes, comment the word class. [00:07:00] And then we'll send you the link, and I'll hop in and chat with you as well.

So, you want to make sure that you have something going on in about 10 to 12 hours. If labor has not started, most of you guys are going to want to head into the hospital, and we're going to help you out some. Right? So let's say you are contracting, you're going to follow my contraction rules, and I've got so much more of this in my feed and on the blog, but you're going to do for a first time mom, contractions less than four minutes, lasting one minute or longer, and that's been going on for two hours, head into the hospital.

Now, if you're GBS positive or you're high risk, you're going to follow a different plan. Okay. If your water breaks and these things occur. Okay. These are your warning bells. If your water breaks and it is predominantly blood, I want you to get your tish into the car.

And go straight to the hospital. And I want you to call your doctor on the way to the hospital from [00:08:00] the car because we should not see predominantly blood. You might see some stringy blood. You might see some pink, but if it is mostly red, we are not messing around with that. Okay. If it comes out and it's green and brown and murky and it's If it smells bad, your baby may have had past meconium and so if it's meconium stained or it's full of meconium, we want you to head in, but you can call your doctor and ask for their opinion.

If you're GBS positive, you're going to follow a different contraction rule. If you live away from the hospital, far away, you're going to follow my other contraction rule. And if you're high risk, you're going to really have a conversation with your provider. If you're one of my students, we can chat about that too.

And we can help you navigate that conversation to find out when you can go in. But most doctors are going to tell you to bring your little tushy in right away. And you don't have to do that. Now, there's another thing. That I want you to listen to, to go in. If your water breaks, now this is not a fear based decision.

This is why you have to [00:09:00] take my classes. If your water breaks and you're making a decision from your instinct, from your mama gut, because your mama gut is very, very powerful. It's very real, but it's not fear based. If your intuition is like, you know, I know labor nurse mama told me to wait until ABC happens, but I feel like I need to go, girl, go.

Just go listen to your gut. So you definitely want to listen to what your intuition is saying. And that's something we teach in our classes. That is one of the most powerful shifts that you can make as a mother is to begin to listen to your intuition and not to fear. Because you're going to have a lot of fear on your journey.

Okay, so, to get your contractions started again, we're going to do the mile circuit, we're going to do nipple stimulation, we're going to do walking and movement, we're going to do deep squats. But here's what we're not going to do if you're water broke. Do not have sex. Now, I always tell you to have sex, to get labor started, but in this [00:10:00] case, we are not having sex, okay?

Because The seal that is protecting your sweet little baby inside of your uterus is broken. And we don't wanna get any germs up into the uterus, okay? So, no sex, got it? All right, now, again, if you are 10 to 12 hours, your water's broken, you're not laboring, you're not having contractions, you might wanna go into the hospital, and there's a couple things we can do.

Number one, we're gonna confirm that your water broke. You may know it for sure by then, But we're still going to confirm it. Once we confirm it, then we're going to decide a plan of action with you. You have a right to help the decide the plan of action. It's just not willy nilly. We do what we want. You guys still have a voice.

Your voice is powerful. So some of the things we can do is pitocin, which is a synthetic version of oxytocin, which is magical. We can do a cervical ripener, or we might have to [00:11:00] actually break more of your water. Your bag of water actually has a four bag and a hind bag and sometimes that four bag will break but not all the way and so we'll go in and break the water all the way and kick start labor.

So that's always an option as well. So this is why I've got my big pad here y'all. Gotta have one of these. Okay, so this is why. You have to have a solid birth plan based on evidence based information and education.

Because if you don't, you're not going to understand your birth options. And one of the things I say all the time is if you don't know your birth options, you don't have any. You don't want to let random nurse or random doctor, or some other person make your decisions. You don't even want your doula to make your decisions for you.

We should be educating you and you should be educated to make your own decisions. Your partner, this is why if you join my classes, again, go to labor nurse mama. com [00:12:00] forward slash calm. And give your partner your login. They need to watch it too. Whatever you got to do. If you have to bribe them, I don't care, but they need to be logging in.

They need to know what you know so that they can advocate for you. Because when you're in labor, your job is to labor. Their job is to support and advocate for what you want, but they got to know what you want. And they got to know why you want what you want, because I can tell you from years of experience, from 16 years of labor and delivery experience, when a doctor comes in, when a provider comes in and they come in with all their authority, and they're telling you, you need to do this and you need to do that.

And you're saying no, if your partner doesn't know why they're going to think that you've lost your rocker and they're going to side with the doctor. And that is going to make it so much harder for you to stick to your guns. So they need to know what you know. You guys hear me? Tap the like button. Give me a heart.

Because it's really, really important that you and your partner are on the same [00:13:00] page. Alright, so before you guys go, I want you guys to remember a couple things. The word coat. Thank you for those hearts. And if you're not following, follow.

The word coat. What does that stand for? Color, odor, amount. Time you're gonna look at what color is my water, right? What color is your water if it's predominantly bloody? You need to go straight in if it's got a terrible odor you might have an infection So you might want to get that checked out.

You want to look at how much is it a trickle? Is it a gush just write it down. It doesn't matter because baby keeps producing more water You're still gonna have more water. The baby is actually the one making the water It's going to go. Baby's going to keep making it to the labor and the baby comes out.

All right. The time is really important because we talked about after 24 hours, you get, you increase your risk of infection. That's why we don't have sex. All right. And you [00:14:00] probably don't want to take a bath unless your bathtub is nice and clean, but talk to your provider about that as well. Now you can do a water birth if your water's broken.

That is a myth. You can. The only reason I say with your bathtub is if your bathtub ain't clean, you probably don't want to get it. All right, so let's think of anything else. Make sure you comment CMS if you're early pregnancy and you're ready to join and have a team of nurses and doulas to support you and the most incredible mamas ever.

Some of my students on here, they can tell you. Comment class. If you wanna get the whole kitten caboodle and you wanna be supported. Okay? You guys have an amazing night. That is four nights. I've gone live four in a row. You guys, can we just say congratulations? 'cause I'm sticking to my guns. I told you guys I was going live every single day, so I'll see you guys again tomorrow.[00:15:00]

Alright mama, so now you know the difference between your water breaking, normal pregnancy discharge, and even just a little bladder leak. It can definitely be confusing no matter how many pregnancies you've had, but the key signs to watch for are continuous leaking, fluid coming out with movement or contractions, and just noticing something that just doesn't seem right.

If you're still unsure, don't stress, put on a pad, keep moving around, do my little cough test. And of course, if you're ever in doubt, just call your doctor for peace of mind. All right, you guys, don't forget a new episode every Friday. Bye for now.