side sleeping

Hey all,

Can anyone talk me through the whole sleeping on your left hand side thing? I was pretty relaxed about this with my daughters but after my dd2 was stillborn, i am now completely paranoid about how i sleep. I am so uncomfy on my left hand side but wont sleep on my right and wake in the night freaking out if i am. I have read up about it all but all the info seems to contridict each other. i am aware that sleeping on your right can reduce the amount of oxygen bub gets (one issue for DD2) and you can squash your liver which is obviously an issue! i am only 13 weeks and have a long time of not sleeping properly if i keep up this paranoia but at the same time i keep thinking its like 7cm, surely its not an issue yet...

I was the same and it was summer and I just wanted to sprawl out!
I read a lot and convinced myself to sleep on my left side but I would while awake (watching tv laying down etc) lie on my right side for shorter periods of time.
I found once I got a full length body pillow it was so much easier to sleep on my left side cuddled around the pillow ... Even when it was really hot.

I slept however I wanted during pregnancy; tummy (until I couldn't anymore), back, both sides. I only got a little dizzy on my back once during DD1's pregnancy, other than that no issues.

I find this really hard to control! I'm so uncomfortable on my left, even if I start there I can't stay there, I always wake up on my right. Even during labour with DD my most comfy position was lying on my right. Once my waters broke the midwife hooked me up to a monitor and no way in hell would she let me go anywhere but on my left. In the end I said bugger this, rolled over and hey presto, DD got into position and pushing started!

So now I subscribe to my body knowing what it's doing, and if something was wrong it wouldn't be the most comfortable position to be in.

I asked my obs about this, and he said that up until about 20 weeks, it didn't matter at all. Then, he said, there is some evidence that it's best not to sleep on your back, but chances are very slim that anything will go wrong without you noticing (ie, getting dizzy or feeling unwell, which, if it happens in your sleep, a normally healthy woman would just roll over in her sleep), and there is no strong evidence regarding left vs right side, just hypotheses, and he finds that mamas sleep better if they're comfy and not stressed about which side they're on, and babies are better when their mamas are less stressed and well-rested. I slept on my right side without feeling guilty after that.