Midwifery Today Community

I have a cbe client who was told to eat a lot of watermelon to increase fluid levels.  She's 36 wks and fluid was measured to be 5.4.  Has anyone ever heard of this and why watermelon? (This isn't exactly watermelon season.)  Why not any other melon?

 I usually recommend watermelon to decrease blood pressure/edema. Never heard of it used to increase amniotic fluid. For that, I recommend coconut water, NOTHING works like coconut water to increase fluid levels.

Ditto, ditto, the coco h2o!

Watermelon is great to increase maternal kidney function, so perhaps it can help fetal kidney out put as well?

 LOVE LOVE LOVE the coconut water! And it's so refreshing, hydrating, and well tolerated in labour, too, women guzzle the stuff and it stays down.

After eating watermelon daily for 7 days, fluid levels were measured to be 7.2 (5.4 was original measurement). Of course, medical folks said it couldn't be that simple of a cure.

Iwatermelon is also contains a heckava lot of water, which is easily absorbed ;)

I'd recommend it to anyone who can't get green coconut water.

Yeah, but how much water vs drinking a glass of water? That's what's so odd.  This is a mama who is drinking a ton of water.

 Maybe it has to do with the pH of the watermelon "water" contenet than tap/ bottled water (often demineralized too)

IWhen you're running a marathon you don't want to drink water: you need minerals and sugar. Water will just run through you, whatever is not needed directly will come out. I suspect that with amniotic fluid it must work like something along those lines: you need water with some sugar and minerals (hence watermelon or coco v good) to retain more and for a longer time? Just a thought. However I have read that 2 liters of water 2 hours before an scan increases amniotic fluid by 30%.