The earlier you have an ultrasound done in your pregnancy, the more water you have to drink. I had one done at I think 8 weeks and had to drink, IIRC, something like 48 oz. of water an hour before the test. After waiting for a while I was in serious pain and had to beg to be allowed to pee out a little before the test. That took an amazing act of willpower I tell you, to pee out a little and then stop when your bladder is that full! I am astounded at the amount of water these people drank without peeing and I would guess many of them must have been in serious pain.
Mid pregnancy, when most women get an ultrasound, you don’t have to drink as much (although still quite a bit for a stressed pregnant bladder). More like 32 oz I believe. By the end of my pregnancy I think I had an ultrasound without water at all.
Seeing as she had children, she probably had had some kind of ultrasound done at some point, although that’s not guaranteed. But I would speculate women who have had children are more likely to know what “stretching the bladder to its capacity” feels like. For me that would make me less likely to enter such a contest, but hey! That’s me. I wouldn’t have thought someone could physically hold their bladder to the point of water intoxication. Mine would give out long before drinking 8-10 glasses or whatever the first round was. I guess I would have been in the “embarrassed and wet” category rather than the “dead” category.
Yeah, if there’s any one class of media consumer I wouldn’t mind dying from a water overdose, it’s whoever listens to these sort of inane programs. Sorry bout the kids, tho.
While I stand by my earlier posts WRT personal responsibility in general, as I learn more about this specific case it looks like I was wrong here. If the people running the contest were informed of the dangers beforehand, and clearly ignored symptoms of water intoxication when they manifested in Strange, than they should be held responsible.
I never had to drink such volumes of water for any of the ultrasounds I had before the birth of precious little RuffLlama. I’d heard about it, but the OB said it’s no longer necessary for routine ultrasounds.
I had my first ultrasound at 8 weeks too, but they used a ultrasound dildo thingy–it wasn’t abdominal with the whole smear-goo-on-your-expanding-belly thing.
And FTR, I find this whole thing horrific. I’ve heard several clips of the show played on local talk radio, and I’m astonished at what went on. I just can’t get how SOMEone authorized this stupid, stupid idea. Even if you don’t know about water intoxication, doesn’t it seem like SOMEthing VERY bad could happen here?
The story goes that during a banquet Brahe had to pee so bad his bladder burst. The etiquette of the day required that he not rise before his host. However, it appears that he may have died from mercury poisoning. Links here and here.
Oh, I forgot about the ultrasound dildo. Chalk me up for about 20 ultrasounds, and I don’t know remember anything about drinking a lot of water. I got them twice a month during infertility treatment. The same clinic handled my pregnancy, so would have used the dildo then too. I’ve had paddles on the abdomen, but that was to check for cysts more recently and late in pregnancy.
My infertility treatment was over ten years ago - a mother of three could have certainly used the same technology I had.
That sounds about right. My co-worker was saying it was about a litre (33-34 oz).
I would guess that the contestants thought they’d be drinking a pint or two at most then waiting to see who peed first. Still kind of stupid but reasonable (like when I’m at a bar and don’t have the opportunity to pee for a bit after I drink a pint or two). They probably didn’t count on drinking 2 litres when they decided to enter the contest.
(But then who knows. People can be really dumb when you wave a shiny toy at them.)
Frat kids once did this in my town. The place used to be somewhere on Playboy’s top 10 college party towns (pretty damn good for a frozen town with a small state school). They got some kid to funnel LOTS of water and he died. This was when I was a junior in High School, I think. By the time I was in college nobody could even drink a beer on their porch without the police stopping if they rolled past. Thanks frat boys.
There’s a variety of ultrasound called the transvaginal ultrasound that uses something that looks like a dildo to basically go through the cervix instead of through the abdomen. I had one for very early pregnancy, when a regular transabdominal ultrasound would’ve been too hard.
Sorry. We’re out of golf claps. Let’s see what we do have. (Hmm. Bowling trophy. Lollipop. Gold star. Faint praise. Crocodile tears. A whole bunch of attaboys. Several backhanded compliments. And an air kiss.)