The concept of forewaters and hindwaters is very difficult to get across without a diagram, but I will try. The bag of waters completely surrounds your baby, but when the baby’s head moves downwards and engages, the head fits into the pelvis like a kind of plug, and separates the bag of waters into two parts, one in front of the head and the other around the body. The part in front of the head is known as the forewaters, and the part around the body is the hindwaters. The waters can break in one of two ways, depending on whether it is the fore or the hindwaters that break. If the forewaters break, then the effect is dramatic and unmistakeable (a gush). If the hindwaters break, this usually results in intermittent trickling (which can be very difficult to distinguish from the odd leak of urine, which is very common at the end of your pregnancy, or from thin vaginal discharge). I’m interested to know what the midwife did to check if your waters had broken, because it’s normal practice to test for the presence of amniotic fluid (waters) using a stick that looks like a large cotton bud. An internal exam is usually done too. If there is amniotic fluid, the stick turns a blue/black colour, regardless if it whether it is the fore or hindwaters that have broken.