if you think your water broke here's what I don't want you to do I don't want you to put on a pad or
a panty liner pads and panty liners they soak up the fluid really well which is great when you're
having a period but when you think that your water broke we really want to see what's the quantity
what's the smell what's the odor and these they're not going to help us hi there I'm Alice Turner a
doula and a childbirth educator and here on my channel I make videos to help you have confidence
before the contractions start now one thing that can be super confusing is if you find that you
have wet underwear or if you wake up in the middle of the night and you notice maybe there's some
type of wetness puddle type situation going on you might be questioning whether or not it was your
fluid now if you notice a big gush of water like a water balloon breaking or something that is you
know a cup of quantity well that was your water there is really no question if you're seeing a big
splashing dripping then it's your water your fluid your amniotic fluid but if you don't notice that
which is really surprising that a lot of people are in this case so if you're in this case you
are not alone so many times I've had clients call me and say I'm not sure if my water breaks
so these are the questions that I ask first I make sure that they don't put on the pad like
I said before what I do recommend is that you put on clean dry underwear so you can get a good idea
about quantity So Clean dry underwear also go to the bathroom so you know your bladder is totally
emptied now when we see the fluid here's what we want to think about the three things are really
amniotic fluid it might be pee urine if you want to be Technical and it might be discharge
as you likely know discharge actually increases as we go along in our pregnancy so there is we see a
lot more discharge so it could fool us and make us think it might be amniotic fluid the first thing
we want to look at is the color of the fluid we're seeing so amniotic fluid is usually clear now it
could be a greenish it could be a brownish color okay but usually it is clear P of course is likely
to be some shade of yellow if you are super well hydrated it's going to be less yellow if
you're dehydrated it's going to be darker so some shade and discharge we're going to see usually as
a whitish it might be clear it might be sort of a creamy type color and so if you check the
color you might be able to know right away what you're looking at but if not let's talk about
the smell so smell of amniotic fluid might be sweet might be nothing the smell of urine
it smells like pee smells like urine and it could be nothing right discharge usually not
much smell so smell I think if you are smelling pee then that's a good indication if you're not
smelling anything you might have to keep looking at the other factors and then how is it coming out
the thing about amniotic fluid is that usually keeps coming
and here's the big thing here what I recommend all of my clients do is I say lay down flat on your
bed on the couch or something with your clean dry underwear on lay there for a little bit and then
sit up and stand up and move around a bit so if it's your amniotic fluid likely you're going to
still see it coming with that change in movement when you lie down it gives your body a chance to
like pull the fluid in your vagina and baby's head will move away from the cervix A little bit so
that it's not corking up the fluid then when you move around the fluid has the ability to come out
so if you see it come out after that lay down the brown period Then very likely it is amniotic fluid
if you don't if it was just a one-time thing then it might have just been your P it might have been
baby kicking your bladder I know that I've had many clients say that in the middle of the night
they wake up with fluid and then they test they take you know put on dry underwear walk around
no change likely we were sleeping and maybe we just had a little bit of our bladder leak
don't feel bad if this is you it is so common and then discharge we're not going to see a trickle
or dripping of discharge usually or change of movement so it's going to be more of a one-time
or through the course of the day we might see it accumulate but we're not going to see it coming
and dripping dripping is really more of amniotic fluid classic dripping okay so amniotic fluid it's
going to be clear it's going to be not very smelly it's going to keep coming and you'll see drips
pee one time yellow smells like pee discharge it we're not going to see those drips and it's going
to accumulate through the day it's not going to be to have a change after that movement now at
any time any time you can go in to your doctor's office or into labor and delivery and say that you
think you're water broke and they can test they put a little test strip in your vagina to get some
fluid on the Strip to see it'll change color and it'll indicate whether or not it is your amniotic
fluid or not so don't hesitate to get it checked out by your care provider and always you can call
your care provider and give them more information that you have noticed and they can let you know
whether or not they think you should come in or not so do not feel bad if you're unsure if you go
into the hospital thinking that your water broke and it didn't it can be confusing so you're not
alone so I have a video right here I know you're going to want to check out next and good luck bye