Everyone, Dr. Boyd here. Welcome back. Apparently, today we're talking about a very confusing subject for many women. Are you ruptured? What does that mean? Well, we're going to use several different terms that you will hear from other patients, other women on the internet from your doctor from your healthcare provider.

So let's use those synonymous terms. Is my bag waters broken? Am I leaking? Are my membranes ruptured? Am I having discharged? Is it water?

Is it that gentle discharge? If you look at all patients that come to the emergency room, come to labor and delivery late in pregnancy, one of the most common complaints that you have is I have increased discharge, I think I'm ruptured or I think I'm leaking. Oftentimes patients are not and they get sent home and they're very discouraged. So I'm hoping to provide help. content information to keep you at home. If you're truly not ruptured, that's important to understand later in pregnancy.

As your cervix opens, there's glands in your cervix that will start secreting watery fluid. This watery fluid, then will oftentimes make your underwear your panties wet. And you will ask yourself, Am I ruptured? Am I leaking? Now it's important to understand that this is a normal finding this watery discharge. Now, if it's malodorous, it means it smells bad, or it's gray, or it's brown, orange, green, things that are not normal and appearance or smell.

You need to be examined for a possible battle infection. But we're just going to take the scenario of a woman that has normal discharge at watery she's she has a cervix that's typically dilated at least one or two centimeters or beyond and try to determine if your membrane rupture. So again, normal discharge late in pregnancy that's watery is not uncommon. Now, if you break your bag and waters rupture, your membranes are leaking, you will have continuous leaking over a period of time that will just continue. So if if I have a preacher mom, that ruptures your membranes at early gestation, but we'll just use 32 weeks we put them in the hospital, and we simply observe them for labor or infection. They continue to leak fluid every day.

Why is that? Because the amniotic fluid comes from the baby's urinating, so the baby's urinate, the placenta removes the waste products, and that fluid continues to come out. So even though you're ruptured, it doesn't stop. The same thing happens if we fast forward now your full term, you're at least 38 or 39 weeks and beyond. And now you're having this fluid that's coming out. So you can To separate is this fluid that's normal vaginal discharge, or is this fluid that's coming from my amniotic membranes, my bag waters that's ruptured.

Typically, when you're ruptured, it's a big gush. And oftentimes you will say, Oh, I'm ruptured. But don't get ahead of yourself because one thing late in pregnancy that can happen frequently, is you can lose urine because of a bladder spasm. So let's assume you're three o'clock in the morning, you've been in a dead sleep, and you wake up and you're all wet. And don't assume that your membranes are ruptured. So what you do is you go to the bathroom, you empty your bladder, change your underwear, and then you wait, you put on the clock, okay, I had this big gush at three o'clock in the morning.

Now, over the next several hours, if you're not ruptured, and you keep your bladder empty, you will not lose any more fluid. In that scenario, you're not ruptured you stay home. Now, if you're running And you've kept your bladder empty, you will continue to leak fluid. Now, again, it's clear, it doesn't have an odor. It's the baby's urine. So it sometimes smells like urine but oftentimes just has its own kind of unique smell.

Now, even in that scenario, you don't have to rush to the hospital. You simply need to mark when your membranes ruptured. Okay, we're going to use this scenario at three o'clock in the morning, you woke up, you empty your bladder, you over the next several hours continue to leak fluids. So we are saying that you have ruptured membranes at three o'clock in the morning. Now you can stay home for several hours and determine if you go into labor and then go to the hospital. However, if you have Group B strep positive, and again, that's a separate video but you should know as a patient if your group B strep positive, I would like you to go to the hospital.

At that point and tell the health healthcare provider nurse, hey, I ruptured my membranes at three o'clock. I'm Group B strep positive we would want to get you on antibiotics right away. If your group B strep negative, you don't have to go to the hospital in that same time fashion. You can stay at home for six to 12 hours to determine if labor will start on its own. As far as labor goes, we'll have a separate video and talk in detail about what to expect from labor. Hope that was helpful today.