For this third week of discussion about women's health, I would like to share my experience dealing with polyhydramnios in my pregnancy. I hope these lines can help any woman going through this condition.
After many years of trying to get pregnant, I was considering with my husband the option of adoption. Assisted maternity was not an option since for health reasons, I have limited use of hormones and other medications. However, sometimes life plays jokes on you, and after one Christmas, I was pregnant.
Despite being my first pregnancy, my happiness was so enormous that myths and fears about the things, I would face in pregnancy did not matter.
It is erroneously believed that what we women should be most careful of when we are pregnant is falls, rash diseases (measles, chickenpox) and sexually transmitted diseases (syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV), and the much-feared "preeclampsia". However, there are other conditions to which we should pay attention.
As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I went for a gynecological-obstetric check-up and underwent a thorough examination. Fortunately, all my values were perfect, so it would be a pregnancy that could go to term. However, because of my age, I had to have an amniocentesis. This test would determine if the fetus had no congenital malformations and if the pregnancy could be carried to term.
I had to wait until I was 16 weeks pregnant to have this test. It is a long time because in those almost four months you get to feel immense love for that little being that is in your womb to then decide to do a medical abortion. However, something inside me felt that everything was going well with my baby, and the results of the amniocentesis proved it.
Looking back, I swear that my pregnancy has been one of the happiest times of my life. Far from all the stories of vomiting experiences, intense sleep, weakness, cravings, and many more, I was pregnant without any of these ailments.
As a nutritionist, I knew the importance of eating healthy and controlling my weight, but I didn't obsess. I remember the only strange thing I experienced was a couple weeks of nausea and vomiting at the end of the third month every time I saw a raw chicken. Another "eccentricity" was eating a 6-inch submarine sandwich for breakfast every day of my pregnancy. During that time, I tried all the existing fillings in that sandwich store 😄.
I gained only 2 pounds per month, and every gynecological checkup indicated that my baby was growing healthy and strong. However, in the middle of the sixth month of pregnancy, I began to feel symptoms of hypotension. I thought it was the weight of my abdomen on some large caliber blood vessels in this area. I also felt a lot of heaviness in my lower abdomen, as if I always felt the urge to urinate. My gynecological checkup is just around the corner, and when I discussed this with my doctor, she suggested a Doppler ultrasound. She was able to confirm that these symptoms were not normal. I had moderate polyhydramnios bordering on severe.
Polyhydramnios is an abnormality in the amniotic fluid in the placenta. There is an increase in the volume of this fluid that puts the integrity of the placental membrane and causes the expulsion of the fetus. If this occurs before the third trimester of pregnancy it would be a cause of miscarriage. I was about to start the seventh month of pregnancy, so all the alarms went off.
My husband was very sad because he wanted with all his heart this baby to be born. I was optimistic, perhaps naively so, but I would do whatever the doctor ordered. Although the main causes for polyhydramnios are gestational diabetes, anemia conditions, or fetal malformations, none of these diagnoses were in me. Therefore this polyhydramnios was "idiopathic", unknown cause.
I immediately had to go into absolute rest along with pharmacological treatment to reduce the placental fluid and to mature my baby's lungs so that in case of premature birth he could survive. During the week, I had a couple of doppler echoes to monitor my baby. Although the situation was a little stressful, I was hopeful that everything would go well, and it did.
Today my son is 15 years old. He is a healthy and energetic young man. The best gift life could have given my husband and me.
I must emphasize is the importance of having frequent gynecological-obstetrical control from the beginning of gestation. In this way, ultrasounds, laboratory tests, and other additional tests, together with the detailed description of symptoms and signs, allow this professional to take the pertinent actions to act in time.
Apart from this incident of polyhydramnios, I can tell you that my pregnancy was so smooth that I would have had many children, but nature is wise, perhaps the other pregnancies would not have been so light 😄.
Another thing I must emphasize is the importance of family support and social environment in this important stage of a woman's life. Feeling cared for and protected helps us to dispel the fears that may invade us when we are pregnant, especially if we are new moms.
If you allow me to give some advice to the women who read me...do not take attention to so many myths and legends about pregnancy. Seek medical information from specialists to clarify your doubts and make the best decisions regarding your maternal health.
Don't live by the opinions of others...live your own experience, and maybe life will pleasantly surprise you.
Interesting links:
SMFM Consult Series #46: Evaluation and management of polyhydramnios
Polyhydramnios: Causes, Diagnosis and Therapy
The author's original text in Spanish was translated into English using DeepL
