Since my premature contractions started this time at 27 weeks, the craziest day is when I ignored my doctors’s advice and went to the beach. I was mostly reclined but I was in the sun, and likely got dehydrated. I got home that night and had contractions that were eerily consistent, like every 2 minutes and 45 seconds apart, and gradually getting closer. I had taken one Procardia pill around 5:30PM and took another at 9:00PM. I now know it’s not recommended to do have them more than 4-6 hours apart as it drastically reduces your blood pressure. Well, finally after 30-40 minutes, the contractions got farther apart, and I didn’t have to make my 4th visit to the hospital for this pregnancy. On the downside, my diastolic blood pressure value was down to 54…
On another note, I’ve been on bedrest for two weeks and haven’t been able to get to the store to stock up on a lot of our staples. In the last week or so, I’ve noticed a decrease in my contractions. Last night and today, they seem to be on a slight increase, but still no where close to what they were. In thinking of what’s changed and hasn’t over the last week… bed rest has more or less been consistent, medication reduced, and I ran out of diet code several days ago. So… I just googled diet coke and pre-term labor, and found a couple of articles suggesting that drinking 4 or more diet sodas can increase likelihood of preterm labor by around 70%.
- http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/23/us-diet-soda-idUSTRE66M4AF20100723
- http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20100820/study-diet-sodas-may-raise-risk-preterm-delivery?page=
I don’t know if there is anything to this, but just in case, I’m cutting back on all artificial sweeteners. The other reasons that I can come up for my issues are related to having too much amniotic fluid (polyhydramnios, mine is ranging from 22-25 so a little high) or irritable uterus. I have made efforts to reduce my sugar numbers to reduce the amniotic fluid, so perhaps that is another reason for improvements.
On another note, this is about the best contraction timer there is – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jamesots.android.contractiontimer&hl=en. This one is for Android. I have others for my Surface Pro and Ipad but this is my favorite.
