What To Do When Your Water Breaks

If your water breaks, you should stay calm, pick up your things and go to the hospital as soon as possible.

This bag, full of amniotic fluid, has coated your baby for months, protecting him from shock and infection, so it’s important to go to a health center as soon as possible. There they’ll help you bring your child into the world in the best way.

Amniotic fluid is sterile, and it’s also renewed quite often because the baby swallows it, filters it through his kidneys and expels it through his bladder.

This fluid also increases in volume in weeks 34-36 of pregnancy, when it reaches approximately one liter. The fluid exits through your vagina when the bag that keeps your baby in a comfortable temperature breaks.

Only 10% of women are known to have their water break before contractions start, which signal that labor has begun.

If this happens to you, try to stay calm, finish packing your suitcase and wait for someone to accompany you to the hospital or clinic you chose to bring your baby into the world.

Before going to the hospital when your water breaks

If your water breaks and you want to take a shower, you can do so without a problem.

You just have to be careful that no liquid or object enters your vagina, because the bag that contains the amniotic fluid is a membrane that protects your baby from infections.

You can use a towel, diaper or several pads to help you collect the liquid that comes out of that bag.

Keep in mind that the water that comes out of your belly can be an abundant quantity, as if a pitcher of water were being emptied between your legs. It can also flow out little by little.

In fact, you may notice that you’re wet and think that you’ve peed. However, the color of amniotic fluid is of a much lighter color and different consistency than that of urine.

You can also eat a light meal. It’s ideal to avoid fats and to eat some glucose, which will become the energy you need to face your delivery with strength.

Although it’s sometimes difficult to stay calm, you must try to relax at this moment. For example, you can lie on your left side if you already have contractions or walk to help the baby get in a good position to come into the world.

Giving birth after your water breaks

Once you’ve arrived at the hospital, the specialists in the area will help you continue with the normal process of delivery.

In that case, if you already have contractions, as the minutes pass you’ll feel them increasingly prolonged and intense, and these will cease when you give birth.

If you don’t have contractions, it’s very likely that the hospital will administer oxytocin to induce labor.

It’s very possible that your child won’t be born for another 12–24 hours, during which time it’s absolutely necessary that, even if your water has broken, you keep calm and think that everything will be fine, that your baby will be born healthy and calm.

A good attitude makes everything better, because it also helps specialists act quickly and efficiently.

It’s very important for you to notice the color of the water. Remember that its color should be transparent, so if you see that it’s greenish, you should tell your gynecologist as soon as possible. She will know what to do in case the baby needs something before birth.

The color of the liquid may also be transparent but with red or brown streaks. That happens because in addition to the expulsion of water, the mucus plug that closes the cervix also comes out.

However, you should be careful if you bleed a lot, because bleeding that is similar to menstruation is considered a medical emergency, which differentiates it exponentially from broken water.

When your water breaks and looks normal, it’s not an emergency; it simply means your delivery started in a different way.