AMAA - Ask Me Anything Antenatal - December!
Hello!
Each month I’m hosting an ‘AMAA - Ask Me Anything Antenatal’ session on Facebook. You can follow my page here for the monthly announcements! It’s your chance to ask a qualified antenatal instructor some questions, for free, when google just won’t do! We’ve all been there, waiting on hold or getting the repeated voicemail recording when all we want to do is ask our midwife or health visitor a quick question. Well now you can submit your queries to me.
Here’s a round up of some interesting questions asked this month. Don’t worry - all questions are asked and replied to privately and I will always make sure you remain anonymous in my blog posts!
I’m 26 weeks pregnant. I’m gutted because a hospital on the other side of the city sounds better for maternity care and I didn’t realise. I’ve booked in at a different hospital. Is there anything I can say to get myself moved across?
Yes of course! There is nothing you need to say other than ‘I want to move!’. You’re entitled to choose where you’d like to give birth to your baby and this decision does not have to be set in stone. Just like any good birth plan, it’s ok to change your mind on things if you see fit. If you wanted to opt for a home birth, you could change your mind at any time and transfer to a hospital. If you’ve booked in at a hospital that is no longer right for you, you won’t have to justify your reasons. Simply ask your community midwife to refer you over to the hospital you’d like to give birth in.
Depending on your location, it is often the case that your community care (fortnightly check ups, doppler scanning and urine testing etc) will take place within the health care trust your doctor’s surgery falls into. If you transfer to a hospital outside of this trust, that’s fine. Your community care will continue with the same team, but your antenatal classes, consultant led care (if needed) and birth will all take place at your choice of hospital.
Does eating dates really help labour to start? I’m 3 days overdue and considering buying some.
Quite a few major studies have been carried out in recent years to find out how dates can help women with their labours. Initially it was thought that dates could bring on labour and make for a shorter labour time. As with absolutely everything to do with getting your labour started, it’s just not that simple. Eating a few dates now that you’re overdue is very unlikely to make much difference.
The guidelines from one study found that eating 6-8 dates per day during the last 4 weeks of labour (from 36 weeks onwards) resulted in:
Significantly higher mean cervical dilatation upon admission compared with the non-date fruit consumers (3.52 cm vs 2.02 cm)
Significantly higher proportion of intact membranes (83% vs 60%)
Spontaneous labour occurred in 96% of those who consumed dates, compared with 79% women in the non-date fruit consumers.
Use of prostin/oxytocin was significantly lower in women who consumed dates (28%), compared with the non-date fruit consumers (47%)
The mean latent phase of the first stage of labour was shorter in women who consumed date fruit compared with the non-date fruit consumers (510 min vs 906 min)
A direct quote from the study results:
It is concluded that the consumption of date fruit in the last 4 weeks before labour significantly reduced the need for induction and augmentation of labour, and produced a more favourable, but non-significant, delivery outcome.
So, it seems there could be great advantages to eating lots of dates late on in pregnancy. Unfortunately for the client asking this question, she was already past her due date and so eating a tonne of dates at this point was unlikely to make much difference!
I’m finding the date studies really interesting and so I’ll do some more research on this and write a full blog post soon with my findings!