Mum on side better for baby
A Wellington mum who went through the heartbreak of losing a baby is using her experience to educate others as part of a new campaign to prevent stillbirths.
During her second pregnancy in 2011, Catherine Maetzig experienced the stillbirth of her daughter Abby, despite having been under specialist care after a difficult first pregnancy.
‘‘Everything seemed to be ticking along fine but we got to nearly 39 weeks and I didn’t feel any movement so we went to the hospital [and] they couldn’t find a heartbeat.
‘‘It was horrific, we were so naive to the fact that this could happen to us ... I honestly didn’t think this type of thing happened any more.’’
While Maetzig will never be sure what specific factors contributed to her loss, she quickly became proactive in educating herself about research into stillbirth and sought support from Sands Wellington-Hutt Valley in the months following Abby’s stillbirth.
After reading about the Auckland Stillbirth Study in 2011, which found that women who sleep on their backs during the last three months of pregnancy are 3.7 times more likely to have a late stillbirth, Maetzig made a conscious effort in her third pregnancy to change her sleeping habits to ensure her baby was given the best chance of survival.
‘‘When I first saw it [the study] I couldn’t believe it, I thought: how can this help me now?
‘‘But with hindsight, I could see that it was fantastic and could help a lot of people.
‘‘So I slept on my side with a pillow behind my back to make sure I didn’t roll over and I ended up, whether it’s related or not, having a beautiful baby daughter,’’ Maetzig said.
While a simple premise, the Sleep on Side; Stillbirth Prevention Campaign has been a decade in the making.
It has been developed by the University of Auckland and Ministry of Health, in partnership with child health research charity Cure Kids.
Professor Lesley McCowan, head of the university’s obstetrics and gynaecology department, has been at the forefront of international research looking at risk factors for stillbirth for nearly
10 years and has spearheaded this public health messaging campaign.
The conclusion from four studies – two by McCowan in New Zealand, one in Australia and one from the United Kingdom – which analysed more than 800 late pregnancy stillbirth cases, reveals a 2.5 to six-fold increase in the risk of late stillbirth if women go to sleep lying on their back.
‘‘While it’s been common for women to be advised to sleep on their side when pregnant, a decade of research carried out in four countries across different ethnicities, has now confirmed, the very consistent association between going-to-sleep position and stillbirth.’’
McCowan explained that research had found that pregnant women lying on their backs from the 28-week-point caused pressure to be put on major blood vessels which could reduce blood flow to the womb and oxygen supply to the baby.
In New Zealand, about
160 seemingly healthy babies are stillborn in the last three months of pregnancy. ‘‘We can now confirm that going to sleep on either your left or right side halves the risk of stillbirth compared with going to sleep on your back.
‘‘We’re hoping this new information will have a significant impact in changing habits,’’ McCowan said.
It is estimated that if pregnant women go to sleep on their side, left or right, in their third trimester there would be a 10 per cent decrease in late stillbirths nationally.
Internationally, this change in sleeping position has the potential to save up to 100,000 babies a year.
Maetzig, who said she would always ‘‘feel like there was someone missing’’ from her family, was hopeful that the new advice would help prevent others going through what she had experienced.
‘‘The campaign is just highlighting that these things happen and you can’t be worried about scaring pregnant women.
‘‘The more knowledge you have, the more you can do to prevent things going wrong.’’
* For more information about the Sleep on Side; Stillbirth Prevention Campaign, visit: sleeponside.org.nz.