Surviving bed rest
Angela Davids: Helping Mamas on Bedrest KeepEmCookin’!
August 9th, 2010
This month I am happy to feature someone who I now consider a good friend, Angela Davids. I actually met and got to know Angela on Twitter (@KeepEmCookin) as we are both passionate about supporting high risk pregnant women on bedrest. I knew from her website (www.keepemcookin.com) that Angela spent time on bed rest with both of her pregnancies, but when she told me what she went through with her second pregnancy, I knew that it was a story that needed to be shared. Angela developed severe pre-eclampsia following the birth of her son. What followed was nearly a fatal catastrophe. But I’m going to let Angela speak for herself. Here is Angela’s story.
Late in 2007, Just 5 weeks into my pregnancy, I discovered through ultrasound that I was pregnant with twins. My husband and I were shocked-yet we couldn’t have been happier. I had miscarried with our first pregnancy, so in a way it felt like we were making up for the baby we had lost.
At 17 weeks into the pregnancy, I begin having contractions.
At 19 weeks into the pregnancy, we had the regularly scheduled ultrasound where most people usually find out if they are having a girl or boy. Would we have one of each? Two boys? Two girls? February 28, 2008 was going to be one of the most exciting days of our lives!
At the ultrasound, we first found out we were having a boy. Bliss! And then the sonographer told us that the other baby had died in utero. I had just heard both heartbeats two weeks before and we had an ultrasound before that, where we saw their fingers and toes and adorable faces. Worry set in. Would the loss of one baby cause me to miscarry and lose both babies? My doctor said we would just need to wait to see if we would make it to 24 weeks, which is the earliest point of viability.
At 24 weeks and 1 day, I went into preterm labor and was placed on prescribed bed rest.
We were able to halt labor, and after nearly four months of bed rest and A LOT of medication, our Little Guy arrived safely at 39 weeks and 3 days on July 20, 2008. He was perfect, But I was in the worse shape of my life!
Immediately after delivery I was in agonizing pain, could barely think and couldn’t put my thoughts together enough to speak. Over the next couple of days I grew worse. I couldn’t walk and I could only hold my son if someone handed him to me because I was so weak. I couldn’t empty my bladder, so a catheter was placed. I cried and said I wasn’t ready to go home, but still, the doctors sent me home.
I called the hospital every day to describe my worsening symptoms; headaches, sudden swelling in my legs, extreme weakness, dangerously high blood pressure. Each time I spoke to a different doctor. Perhaps because I was so weak and my thoughts and speech were so confused, they couldn’t understand what I was saying. But on the fifth day home, I suddenly had chest pain and a nose bleed and my husband put me in the car and immediately drove me back to Labor and Delivery.
The doctors suspected preeclampsia, a condition characterized by often dangerously high blood pressure, extremity swelling and protein in the urine. It is treated with magnesium sulfate given intravenously to prevent seizure and stroke from the high blood pressure. It’s a horrible drug, with unbearable side effects for some, but it works. A few hours later when they tested my blood, they realized that the magnesium sulfate wasn’t leaving my body through my urine because I wasn’t urinating. It was trapped in my body because I was in acute kidney failure.
The pain was unreal and the thought of it still frightens me. Every moment was a struggle. The monitors sounded an alarm every time I shut my eyes because if I didn’t force myself to breathe, I stopped breathing. My sister was amazing, telling me, “Stay awake, Ang. You can get through this.” While doing her best to encourage and support me, she was running to the bathroom to throw up because she was so sick with worry. Meanwhile, my husband and my mom were at home with my newborn son and our two and a half year old, trying to maintain some kind of normalcy there.
After a week in the hospital, a blood transfusion and various IV fluids I was able to return home to my son. I was still very weak, but at least I was home.
When I thought of how lonely and frightened I was during my long months of bed rest, then to miss the first two weeks of my son’s life after all those hours waiting for him was almost unbearable. Part of me wanted to leave my experiences with bed rest and preeclampsia behind, to just move on. But I knew I was lucky to be alive. I had learned so much through my experience I decided to create a way for women on bed rest to reach out to one another online, to describe what they are experiencing and to help one another. That’s where the idea for KeepEmCookin.com came from.
Ladies, We can learn from one another and teach one another about high-risk pregnancy; what symptoms to look out for, how to care for ourselves and how to advocate for ourselves. We can share with one another the right questions to ask our doctors and how to make ourselves heard. Most importantly, We can do our part to guarantee that we have the healthiest pregnancies possible and keep our babies safely cookin’.
What Exercises Can I Do With an Incompetent Cervix?
July 1st, 2010I recently received an-e-mail from a mama who had just gone on bedrest with an incompetent cervix at 30 weeks.”What exercises, if any, can I do with an incompetent cervix,” she asked?
An incompetet cervix is one of the more common reasons pregnant mamas are prescribed bed rest. While the rates of incompetent cervix are thought to be low, no one is exactly sure how many women are affected by incompetent cervices during pregnancy. An incompetent cervix can manifest in one of three ways:
- Opening of the cervical os more than 2.5 cm during the second trimester
- Thinning and shortening of the cervix (effacing) in the second trimester or early third trimester
- Thinning or opening (funneling) of the cervical opening closest to the baby
The treatment for incompetent cervix is cerclage (surgically placing a stitch through the cerix to hold it closed), bed rest, or a combination of the two.
Being prescribed bed rest puts a mama at risk for blood clots in the legs, muscle atophy and overall loss of strength and cardiovascular conditioning. Most women who are prescribed bed rest should also be prescribed-or at least advised about-exercises that they can do to maintain muscle strentgth and tone as well as to reduce the physical effects if prolonged inactivity. However, it has been my experience that many women prescribed bed rest receive little or no instruction on what they can do to exercise their bodies while on bed rest. This is due in part because many obstetricians don’t know what types of exercises are safe for women on prescribed bed rest. A lucky few mamas will have a consultation or two with physical therapists. But the vast majority of mamas who go on prescribed bed rest will receive no exercise instruction. For this reason I produced Bedrest Fitness when I was pregnant during my second pregnancy.Bedrest Fitness is a set of modified prenatal exercises designed specifically for pregnant women on prescribed bed rest.
A mama with an incompetent cervix should avoid any movements or exercises that put pressure on the cervix and many women will be instructed to remain recumbant in bed or on the sofa. But if you think about it, that leaves your arms and legs free to move. Mamas on bed rest with an incompetent cervix should perform a variety of arm and leg exercises daily to maintain steady bloodflow and adequate circulation back to the heart-especially from the legs. Leg exercises should include:
- Leg Ab/Adduction exercises
- Passive double knee raises (provided Mama can do them using an exercise band or towel to draw her knees up and not engage her abdominal muscles. If mama feels any pressure in her lower abdomen, these should be avoided!)
- Point/flex of toes to exercise the calf muscles
- Ankle circles
Upper body exercises should include (using a towel or exercise band):
- Modified flies
- Shoulder extensions with arms extended forward and to the sides
- Upright rows
- Bicep curls
- Triceps extensions (if allowed to sit up)
On Bedrest Fitness I included Cat/Cow stretches. Women with incompetent cervices can
actually do these stretches, but in my experience they often are unable to gauge how much pressure they are putting on their cervices. So unless a physical therapist or fitness professional is present, I don’t recommend that mamas with incompetent cervices perform these exercises.The same is true of the modified crunches.
Bed rest can have a profoundly negative (albeit temporary) effect on a mama’s overall physical condition. Depending on how long she was on bed rest prior to delivery and the restrictions she’d been given, a new mama can find herself unable to hold herself upright or to even hold her newborn. But if she engages in a few very simple but targeted exercises while on bed rest, mama will find that she will be less deconditioned after delivery and recover more quickly.
If you or someone you know has been prescribed bed rest during pregnancy, order a copy of Bedrest Fitness. Even if Mama can’t do all of the exercises, she will preserve muscle strength and tone in the areas she does exercise. Mama can also download a free set of lower body exercises, stretches and Kegels when she signs up for the Mamas on Bedrest e-mail list.
Mamas on Bedrest: Survey Says….
May 6th, 2010At the beginning of April I sent out a survey to see just what do Mamas on bed rest need? I wanted to survey women 
who are on bed rest as well as “veterans” who have moved past bed rest into motherhood to see if the products and services that Mamas on Bedrest & Beyond are offering are what mamas really wanted.
First and foremost, A huge THANK YOU to everyone who responded to the survey. Your answers are greatly appreciated. I will use the information make improvements to the website and to seek out services and alliances with other providers and to make sure that when women on bed rest come to my website or seek services, they can get exactly what they need and don’t need to look any further.
The survey consisted of 6 (actually 5 questions. The last question was for their name and e-mail address to follow up) questions ranging from what sort of physical problems women are having to what one thing made being on bed rest better. While many of the responses were expected, there were a few that were a surprise. Below are the questions and the tabulated responses.
1. What has been the hardest part of being on prescribed bed rest?
By far the most difficult thing for mamas on bed rest was not being able to care for their existing children, not being involved in their day to day care and having to surrender that care to someone else. This was followed closely by boredom and a feeling of isolation. Other common worries were:
- inability to care for themselves, being dependent on others to care for them
- inability to care for their homes and families
- not knowing if being on bed rest would help-prolong the pregnancy or keep baby safe/healthy.
- Loss of muscle tone/body aches/becoming deconditioned
Inability to work or to prepare for being out of work, worrying about what would happen with the pregnancy and anger/frustration at husband who was able to go about freely and work were each felt by one women.
Interestingly, most of the mamas in this survey were strong ladies and were not spending time worrying but just focusing on making it through and having a healthy baby.
2. What are your biggest physical challenges (body aches, stiffness, weakness,etc…) being on bed rest?
Pain and stiffness in the back, hips/butt and legs was by far the greatest physical challenge reported by two thirds of the respondents. The next most common problems were:
- Inability to sleep comfortably/insomnia from laying around all day
- generalized fatigue
- shortness of breath.
The shortness of breath at first surprised me, but given that women on bed rest more than 2 weeks become quite decondititoned, and when one is on prolonged bed rest, one doesn’t take deep breaths to expand the lungs, I’m not surprised shortness of breath became an issue. Cervical pressure, a rash and chest pain all received one vote.
3. What is your greatest fear about being on bed rest?
The greatest fear of being on bed rest is that in the long run, it wouldn’t help. By nearly 2:1 over the next most common answer, mamas were mostly afraid that even being on bed rest would not be enough to have a healthy, term infant. The second most common concern, was losing their baby and/or dying themselves! The next most common worries:
- Being too weak to care for their babies post partum
- Being too weak to have a normal vaginal birth
- Excessive weight gain
- A long post partum recovery
4. What is THE ONE THING that if you had it/knew it beforehand/could do right now would make bed rest infinitely more bearable?
In this age of technology, having cable tv/NetFlix was the number one way women passed the time. This was very closely followed by having a computer or smart phone to surf the web and to watch movies. Other must haves:
- Housekeeper and support services like a chef/meal planner
- Exercises/Physical therapy
- Visits from friends and family
I was happy to see that one participant would have liked to have seen/toured the NICU. This was something that I had wished I could have done given that my daughter ended up there for 10 days. I think this participant is right in that there should be some sort of video available to help prepare parents. Another interesting response was that one respondent felt that being on bed rest at home would have been better than being on bed rest in the hospital. We’ll have to investigate that!
Women also noted that doing projects/crafts, keeping a positive attitude, remembering that bed rest is a finite situation and being comfortable (one woman recommended a bed rest pillow while another recommended getting a recliner) made bed rest bearable.
5. What can Mamas on Bedrest & Beyond do (better) to help?
This had to be the most gratifying section for me. The number one response was having the Mamas on Bedrest & Beyond website!(Honestly, I didn’t pay anyone for their responses!) It beat out all the other answers 5:1!
Interestingly, when I started this business I was sure that women would want support services; massages, laundry, housekeeping services, errands, etc… But that’s not what mamas want. Here’s what I have found in business and now from this survey:
- They want their existing children well cared for
- They want activities to pass the time
- They want support – They want visits from friends and relatives. They want to interact with other women going through the same process (I highly recommend the KeepEmCookin’ forum for this!). They need reassurance that it’s all going to be okay.
- They want to learn more about bed rest; indications, how effective it is, what are alternatives and what they can do to be at their best when their bed rest journey is over. They also want to hear from women who have made it through the bed rest journey successfully.
This was HIGHLY informative to me. As the owner and founder on Mamas on Bedrest & Beyond, my mission, my goal and my passion is to serve women on bed rest and to make sure that they have all that they need to get survive bed rest, transition safely and healthily to motherhood and to remain strong-physically and emotionally. In the coming months I’ll be integrating the suggestions from this survey into products, services and resources on the website.
In the meantime, As per request, please share your bed rest testimonials. Women need to hear that you can go on bed rest and have a normal pregnancy and healthy baby. They also need to hear that even if things don’t go as planned, it’s still okay. Please share your bed rest survival stories at info@mamasonbedrest.com.
