hey there you are about to be part of the most exciting video about
amniotic fluid that has ever been created five four three two one
and make sure you're watching at the end because i am busting out some water balloons and we're
going to talk all about that mysterious event of pregnancy known as water breaking
i think my water just broke
hey if we haven't met before my name is alice turner i have attended over 300 births as a
doula and i've taught even more families on this channel i love creating videos that help you
prepare for birth by bringing you information that you can actually use so if that sounds
good to you and you like these topics hit that subscribe button for more videos like this now
about amniotic fluid let's start with a quick anatomy lesson our baby lives in a fluid filled
sac inside of our uterus the fluid is called amniotic fluid the sac amniotic sac now this
fluid is regulated by the placenta but the baby also contributes to the fluid level through their
urine now fluid is vitally important to the health the growth of your baby
it's like the baby is inside a water balloon and it helps the baby from being injured it
protects baby it helps the cord from being compressed because this fluid level
is so important it's actually measured during ultrasounds so during the ultrasound procedure
the sonographer is going to look for dark pockets of fluid measure those add them up and they
come to a measurement called the afi or the amniotic fluid index now the afi it changes
from early pregnancy through late pregnancy and i'm going to need some more props to discuss
now that we have our amniotic fluid let's measure out the different levels at the different times or
different weeks of pregnancy so at 12 weeks we our amniotic fluid is just about 60 milliliters
right here this is our 12 week now let's do
at 16 weeks 16 weeks that's about three quarters of a cup
so we've gone from 12 weeks
to 16 weeks where we have the most amniotic fluid that's right around 34 weeks
and we're looking at about three and a half cups for 34 weeks 800 milliliters
three and a half cups which is about 800 milliliters okay so quite a difference
at 40 weeks actually between 34 weeks and 40 let's use this cup for 40. our fluid goes down a bit
towards the end of your pregnancy from 34 weeks down to 40 weeks so we can see that it has gone
down some so again we've got 12 weeks 16 34 that's where we have our most on average and then our 40
weeks two ways that you have control over your fluid level is hydration staying really hydrated
and rest so if you are going in for an ultrasound i would like you to focus on your hydration and
rest it can really make an impact in the amniotic fluid levels so let's say you're going in for
an ultrasound on a wednesday how about focus on fluid and rest the saturday before and all the way
leading up so that when you have that ultrasound measurement you have a nice healthy fluid level
there are two problems that can happen with our amniotic fluid one is too little fluid which is
oligohydraminose and that is when you have less than 500 milliliters at after um in your second
trimester or if you have too much which is poly hydrominous and that is when you have around 2 000
milliliters now that we are well versed on the amniotic fluid it is time to break some water
no wait she peed her water broke hey guys here in the bathroom where we are going to show different
types of water breaking now the first one i want to talk about is spontaneous rupture of membranes
where we are going to have a big contraction and something enough pressure is gonna be inside that
we're gonna get a significant hole in our amniotic sac that's what this water balloon is representing
so our amniotic sac gets a hole and we have what is considered a big gush come out so
that's the first now spontaneous rupture of membranes actually only happens at
the beginning of labor like at the start of labor for about 10 of people
most people experience spontaneous rupture of membranes if their uh water isn't broken
by their care provider sometime in labor when labor really starts going so that's spontaneous
rupture of membranes so let's look at i'm going to use a pen and we're going to put a little pressure
on this water balloon when we break the water and let's see what that gush looks like now this is
about the same quantity of water that we have around 36 to 40 weeks okay let's
break it so here we are with our sac gonna put a little bit of pressure on it and then we have
so if we're going to show an artificial rupture of membranes that's when we're going to use the amni
hook so the amni hook has a little tiny piece on it you can just see it it's like a little piece of
plastic the artificial rupture of membranes is your care provider is going to thread
the amni hook up through the vagina and the cervix and then is going to
just snag the bag the amniotic sac with that little hook
and we've got a rupture so the next type of leak is not quite as dramatic
but happens and it's a little confusing when it happens if you're experiencing and that's when
you have a high leak so that is where it's suspected that somewhere up in the top
of your amniotic sac you have a small hole so when you have a contraction some fluid comes
out but it doesn't come out in that big gush so what i'm going to do is take my pen very carefully
and do a small hole over here just going to do a little small hole without the pressure
and what you'll see can you see that water coming out so the fluid it leaks sometimes
with the high leak it trickles so it's coming out but it's not coming out in a huge amount and the
other thing to note is that your baby's head might be sitting really close onto your cervix
and if that's the case then as the water comes out here the baby's head might cork some of the fluid
and so that the fluid can kind of be on and off in spurts and not that huge gush that we saw
with the other example so this last example i want to show is kind of
an another interesting situation and that's when you have a leak of what's called a four bag
so technically the bag is made up of two membranes so you can see this here i have a
a blue balloon i have an orange balloon the blue is inside the orange
so the member the membranes are actually two layer and occasionally there can be fluid
that is trapped in between the two layers or that only one layer breaks with maybe a high
leak and so what this looks like in labor is that you seem to have a gush or a slow leak and then
you stop having much leaking and when your provider checks they can feel that the bag is
still intact even though you might have had a gush so what i'm going to do is make a hole
in just one layer in this outside layer and let's see what happens so i'm just making a hole in this
outside membrane i put some water in just the orange so can you guys see that i put some water
in the orange layer but most of the water is in the blue layer so we've got a leak here
and we're having contractions and it's leaking you can see the water is leaking but what will happen
is that after some time after all the water kind of leaks out from that membrane yep here we go
all the water has leaked out and a little bit more came when we had another contraction
but it has leaked out and we have an intact bag what seems like an intact
bag but clearly if you experienced this if you were the one to experience this in labor
and you had all of that water collect in a pad or in your underwear you would know
that something came out but it feels a little bit mysterious when there's still a membrane
so a lot of times providers will call that a four bag and then later on they will maybe come in and
want to or suggest to break the water again and sometimes it might take a couple of um pulls to
try to get that just right but and then or we can wait for another spontaneous rupture
you