Here are some questions you could ask about your bed rest:

1. In or out of hospital?

Do you have to be monitored 24 hours a day, necessitating a stay in hospital, or are you allowed to stay at home and call your doctor if there are any problems?

Some doctors are more cautious than others and some conditions are more risky than others. A woman I met while I was on bed rest with my daughter was 26 weeks pregnant and had been on bed rest, in hospital, since her 7th week. She had lost her previous baby at 22 weeks due to an undetected incompetent cervix and because of this, her doctor was being extra cautious. When I questioned her about her feelings about being on rest for so long, she said that she preferred to be in hospital, knowing that she was doing everything she could to keep her current pregnancy.

If you were put on bed rest because of early labour, some doctors prescribe remote, or home monitoring of contractions. The monitor is attached to your belly for about an hour per day and the read-out is sent to your doctor’s computer via a phone or internet line.

2. Toilet and showering privileges?

Some bed rest prescriptions come down to this: how much can you move around? It might be that your doctor would prefer you to lie flat and use a bed pan, or he might be ok with you having one shower or bath per day and then going straight back to bed.

While I was on bed rest with Hannah, I longed for shower time. Bed rest was so boring that any distraction was a good one. But then, when I finally got to get up and shower, I’d start contracting again and wish I was back in bed. Showering was also an uncomfortable experience, because I had to be attached to my ipradol drip at all times. (Next time you’re in the shower, try washing yourself with one hand strapped behind your back! Now imagine that hand has a needle in it, which is attached to a tube attached to an IV… Yep, now you’re getting the picture.)

Other questions related to moving around could be:

2a. Are you allowed to pick up your other children?

If you’re already a mom, this is probably the first question you’re going to ask. Are you allowed to care for your children as you normally would, or do you have to leave that to someone else? This was a huge issue for me and probably the one that depressed me most about being in bed. I wanted to be able to care for my children the way I usually did, but bed rest prohibited me from doing that.

Lifting your other children might bring on contractions for you, so it might well be a no-no. Find out and try to come to terms with your limitations as soon as possible. The sooner you do, the better it’ll be for your children. My older two children learned very fast what my limitations were when I was on bed rest with my third child and they were happy with hugs and kisses rather than being picked up.

2b. Can you exercise at all?

This is an important one, because some sources argue that recovery from bed rest can be a long and painful process if you don’t do simple exercises while you’re in bed. This article tells the story of a woman who succumbed to tendonitis and tennis elbow post-bed rest, while this is one of the many that say you should try to keep your strength up and your blood moving by doing mild exercise while on bed rest. Ensure that you know what your doctor’s position is on this. If he’s ok with mild exercise, get him to refer you to a physiotherapist or a specialist who could advise you on focused exercises.

Research your bed rest parameters

Trawl the internet for other questions you might need to ask about the parameters of your bed rest. This is the most comprehensive list I could find, but there are many more out there.

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