# 33 weeks pregnant with a cold and leaking everytime i cough



## contactmaya (Feb 21, 2006)

Hi everyone, ive gone a caught a cold. Its hard enough sleeping without coughing all night. At first the coughing was just coughing, now its accompanied by a leak (im really hoping its urine) everytime. it has a smell like stale urine, its usually yellow (but then the clear would mix with the yellow) Anyway i can tell? It sought of smeels like amonia sometimes (i readhere that amniotic fluid smells like bleach) It certainly doestn smeel like sperm.

This is so unpleasant and im really hoping its not the flu.

Anyway, i see the midwife in two days, hopefully ill be better by then.

Anyone been through this?
Maya


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## DBZ (Aug 9, 2005)

I'm suffering the same way right now. Try and keep your bladder from getting too full and wearing a cloth pad will help contain things. I hope we feel better asap.


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## Ironica (Sep 11, 2005)

Yeah, definitely the most undignified part of being sick when pregnant!

If you have the same virus that ripped through our family, the symptom set includes not just the cough, but a fever (I only had it mildly, but both DS and DH were feverish for over 2 days straight), nausea and/or vomiting (only DS threw up), diarrhea, body aches, and stuffy nose. You may have a day or two of seeming wellness in the middle of it all, too. It's a nasty, nasty bug. I know several people who have had it, and thought they had the bad luck to get a stomach flu *and* a cold on top of each other... but too many people have had all the symptoms for it to really be two different bugs.

As mentioned, keep your bladder empty as much as possible. Heck, go sit on the pot when you feel a coughing fit coming on. ;-) Menthol cough drops are pretty benign and helped to control coughing a lot for me. For sleeping, I found that using a bed wedge to sleep at an incline made a huge difference. Doing a steam tent for 10 minutes before bed also helps a ton to lessen coughing... just get some water (maybe 8 cups or so) heated to steaming, pour into a basin, bowl, or bucket, and put a towel over your head and the basin so you can inhale the steam. Add a few drops of eucalyptus oil to the water if you have it around.

If the cough doesn't go away in a few days and/or you can't get adequate sleep because of it, don't mess around... get help! I had bronchitis for a month during my last pregnancy, and it REALLY messed up my health toward the end there. I should have gone in a lot sooner. They gave me an albuterol nebulizer treatment at the doctor's office and an albuterol inhaler for use as needed at home. (Albuterol is slightly risky if you might go into labor at any moment, but generally considered safe for pregnancy.) Ever since that experience, I've avoided bronchitis by doing the steam tent thing at bedtime as long as the cough lasts.


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