Having an overdue baby can be uncomfortable and exhausting and may make you want to do whatever you can to speed up the baby’s arrival. Whether it’s spicy foods, oil therapy, or acupuncture, some parents-to-be will try anything. This viral TikTok seems to have found a new method of inducing labor.
Mom-to-be Shailene Alexus was enjoying a day of pickleball and went in for a jump to make an impressive hit. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?), that jump resulted in a well-placed shot and her water breaking causing her to let out a yell and halt the pickleball match.
Overdue moms in the comment section are already prepared to try this tactic to speed up their own labor process. Other commenters were just impressed at Shailene’s pickleball skills while nine months pregnant, saying that jumping that much while pregnant had much worse ramifications for them. A few speculated that maybe the water breaking was actually just a bladder leak from the impact of the jump. “Or you peed a little, both reasonable,” posted one viewer.
This theory was later confirmed by Shailene when she posted a video saying she was still pregnant and at home a day later. She said she was 38 weeks pregnant and only growing, despite the hopeful water-breaking incident.
Mistaking a bladder leak at the start of labor can be an easy thing to do, especially if you’ve never been pregnant before. According to the Mayo Clinic, in some cases, it is best to check with a healthcare provider if you’re not sure of the difference. The “water breaking” isn’t water, but actually fluid from the membrane sac that surrounds the baby in the uterus. To determine if the leakage is actually amniotic fluid or if it is just urine, a doctor can do a physical exam or an ultrasound to check the levels of amniotic fluid left in the womb. For cases like Shailene’s, it is important to learn the difference when it happens, because once the water breaks that typically means that labor is about to begin if it hasn’t already.
As it turns out, the pickleball craze that’s sweeping the nation may not be good for any more than social time and exercise. Although, who knows, maybe the next viral TikTok video really will be a broken water and not just a leaking bladder. For all that she went through with her viral pickleball shot, here’s hoping that Shailene won at the very least.