When Louise Adams’ water broke at 22 weeks, everyone agreed that it was not good. Doctors at the time said that there was nothing that could be done as her baby had not yet reached the age of 24 weeks. The staff sent her home in heartbreaking fashion. But Louise did not give up. After doing research online, she began drinking 3 gallons of water per day to save her baby in this fascinating story.
“All they could do is monitor me in hospital waiting for the inevitable miscarriage, which they said would happen in days,” Louise recalls.
The doctors at the time said that their unborn son, Joseph, had only a 5% chance of survival. But Louise’s heart didn’t want to believe such a thing.
“But I could feel Joseph kicking,” she said. “I couldn’t just sit around doing nothing to save him.”
So, Louise hopped on the internet and scoured Google for any advice she could find.
She found in her research that in other countries, women in nearly identical situations were typically put on a drip, so the additional water could replenish the lost amniotic fluid.
“The more the mother drinks the more the baby drinks and urinates,” she explained. “As excretion of urine by the unborn baby is the major source of amniotic fluid production in the second half of pregnancy, it made sense that increasing my fluid intake could make a difference.”
Her research told her that it was best to drink more than 3 gallons of water per day. That is quite a bit of water to be drinking every day, but Louise was passionate about doing anything to save her baby. She thought if she could at least get Joseph to 24 weeks, he would stand a much better chance of surviving.
“Doctors and midwives were skeptical and gave me no hope,” she said. “They told me there was little research and it was unlikely to make any difference. But I had nothing to lose.”
And so, Louise took the effort each day to rest and constantly sipping water. It was a tiresome task, but she stuck to it.
“I shut myself off from the world. It wasn’t easy but I drank around seven pints a day,” Louise recalls. “I also consumed cranberry juice and raw cloves of garlic after reading they could ward off infection, common when the waters break early.”
After making it to the 24 week mark, the doctors issued Louise steroids to mature Joseph’s lungs and antibiotics to try to stop any infections. During this process, she kept drinking water.
And wow did that determination pay off!
Louise took Joseph to the 8-month mark. At that moment, Joseph was brought into the world at a healthy 5 lbs., 10 oz.
“When we heard him crying his eyes out, we were overjoyed,” his mom says. “He was absolutely perfect and did so well, he came home after just a week.”
The “smiling bundle of joy” is now 6 months old, and as healthy as can be.
