Braxton Hicks or Preterm Labour!?

We've had fun over the last few days. On Thursday evening Mum started having regular Braxton Hicks every 6 minutes or so. Everything we'd read had said that these "false labour" symptoms should be irregular and no more than every 10 or 20 minutes. So we phoned the hospital who told us to come in.

One of the first things was to get rigged up to the CTG again, which confirmed what Mum was feeling. The top line is baby's heartbeat (it should be that squiggly as he's moving around a fair bit), the middle line (blocky, looks a bit like morse code) is baby's movements, bottom line is contractions. Braxton Hicks shouldn't be as regular or powerful as this.

Then followed the usual batch of tests, including a scan to see which way round baby was lying and a Fetal Fibronectin (fFN) test. The fFN test is great for finding out if there are any chances of going into preterm labour, or not depending on how you look at it. Basically, if the test is negative then you've got about a 95% chance of not going into labour anytime soon. If the test is positive then it's only about 40% sure that you may go into labour at some point within the next 10 days or so. Sods law, we test positive.

We then get transferred from the Day Assessment Unit to Central Delivery Suite. The prescribed treatment is two corticosteroid injections 24 hours apart, to help baby's lungs mature (just in case), and upto 45 hours on an Atosiban drip to slow down any contractions.

Friday morning things were already looking a bit more normal, but Mum was still feeling a few twinges here and there. The drip could finish this morning (Saturday), or may need to continue until later this evening. Then Mum will get transferred to the maternity ward for two days of monitoring. If things stay within normal levels then she should be able to go home by Tuesday, we hope. Crisis averted. Fingers crossed, touch wood.