To hospital quickly

1. Although it is extremely rare (about 1 in 500 pregnancies) the baby’s cord may have dropped down and could be squashed between his head and your pelvis. This is called cord prolapse. Your midwife will make sure this hasn’t happened by monitoring the baby’s heart.
2. Once your waters have gone, there a risk of infection to you and your baby, so most obstetricians will want the baby delivered within the next 24 to 48 hours. The date and time that your waters break have to be registered on your notes. The midwife will probably test the fluid with litmus paper to make sure they have gone. If nothing else is happening, you might be sent home for a little while to see if contractions begin of their own accord, but you’ll be asked to take your temperature every four hours in order to check that you’re not getting an infection.

If you don’t start contractions spontaneously the hospital will induce labour

Although you may be disappointed to be induced, it is the best option for you both. Otherwise, when your baby is born, he may have to be given an intravenous course of antibiotics (not the best of starts) and it means you will have a longer stay in hospital.

How much water is there?

Some women report a positive flood when their waters break but, in practice, the quantity varies. It depends on the amount of fluid between the baby’s head and the cervix – the forewaters. If your baby has forewaters, you could lose as much as a litre of fluid – hence the deluge, and you certainly won’t be in any doubt as to what’s happened.

But if your baby is lying with its head on the cervix, you may only leak a little bit of fluid because this will act as a plug. In this case, it’s hard to know if your membranes have actually gone and you really are leaking amniotic fluid.