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Home › Articles › Multiples › Multiple Issues

Multiple Issues

The Risks Associated with Twin Pregnancies

By Melinda Copp

Pages:  1  2  3  4  

Preterm labor is extremely serious. If your labor cannot be stopped, your baby will be born prematurely and face a hard, possibly lifelong struggle, with the side effects. And some babies do not survive. Doctors take preterm labor very seriously and oftentimes put you on bed rest to prevent it from happening again.

Bed Rest
"There are no randomized trials showing the benefit of bed rest, but Papiernik's data from France showed that pregnant women who stand for long hours or work excessively have higher rates of premature labor," says Dr. Robin Haynes De Regt, the medical director of Women and Children's Services at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, Wash. A nurses' study in the United States confirmed the same findings, she says.

"Patient after patient tells us that if she gets out of bed, she contracts more, but when she rests she contracts less," Dr. De Regt says. "There is also less of a strain or pressure on the cervix when one is horizontal rather than vertical."

Often at the slightest sign of preterm labor, a doctor will recommend bed rest to be safe.

"At 28 weeks I started getting some Braxton-Hicks contractions and when my OB checked my cervix she found it had effaced a little," says Holly Clark, an expectant mom from San Francisco, Calif., who is carrying twins. "So I was put on modified bed rest. I did that for about two weeks and then at my next ultrasound, at 30 weeks, they looked at my cervix and said it was still long and did not have any funneling. So I was given permission to add activities back in."


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