[haileysmum]

hi
it has been 2 years since my traumatic birth experience and I am still not ready to discuss in detail. I just want to get some opinions on a portion of what happened. My 1st dd was born vaginally with no issues about 8 hour labour. My 2nd dd was a completely different story even though my ob continually told me through my pregnancy and up to 2 days before she was born that this was going to be a piece of cake 'boring' delivery. Well after 20 hours in labour I went to the hospital and was 5 cm dilated. The midwife checked me frequently and whilst I was dilating, the baby wasn,'t moving down. At 9cm she broke my waters. When the ob (not my normal one) came in to examine me at 10cm he immediately realised that the baby was frank breech and it was bum NOT head at the bottom. My two questions are:

how is it possible for the midwife to not pick this up after multiple exams,10cm dilated and breaking my water?

my ob told me 1 day before labour that baby was in the correct position but I never felt baby turn after that and baby was born with hip dysplasia and enlarged genitals. Does this seem like baby was breech for a long time?

thanks for any comments. Thursday is two years and it still weighs heavy on my mind as dd wasn't breathing when born and has had lots of issues since.

[Katia09]

Couldn't read and not reply - I'm sorry you had such a traumatic time

I'm not an expert at all, but I believe all babies have swollen genitals at birth - something to do with the hormones in Mum during pregnancy. And anecdotally, I have a friend who is 39 weeks pregnant with baby 2 at the moment, and baby has turned from head up to head down, back again, and back again in the past 2 weeks (the last turn at some point in the past 2 days) and she's felt nothing more than normal movement! So I guess it's possible that the baby could have turned after your ob saw you?

I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience

[3_for_me]

I had one do a complete turn around while in labour so it can definately happen, especially with a second when things are a little stretched already after the first baby.


Sorry you had a horrid experience OP

[fairyflossfart]

My DD was head down one afternoon. I went into hospital that afternoon and that night my waters broke. The nurse did an internal because I was having contractions but very little pain. What she felt was foot and cord between them. I had a CS 3hrs later.

Apparently I had a lot of amniotic fluid and that allowed bub to turn so late.

[haileysmum]

Couldn't read and not reply - I'm sorry you had such a traumatic time

I'm not an expert at all, but I believe all babies have swollen genitals at birth - something to do with the hormones in Mum during pregnancy. And anecdotally, I have a friend who is 39 weeks pregnant with baby 2 at the moment, and baby has turned from head up to head down, back again, and back again in the past 2 weeks (the last turn at some point in the past 2 days) and she's felt nothing more than normal movement! So I guess it's possible that the baby could have turned after your ob saw you?

I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience

thank you so much for your kind words. I replay this experience all the time in my head but much more around her birthday. It also makes me feel guilty because I still get sad and angry feelings on what should be such a happy day. Suppose I just need to get over it all and move on.

but helps to know someone cared enough to reply so thanks again.

[wallofdodo]

I can't answer any of your questions, but I am sorry this was your experience.

Have you had any councelling? It can really help, I had a bit of a breakdown on my son's first birthday, and the councelling got me through that time and subsequent birthdays.

This post has been edited by wallofdodo: 03/04/2012, 10:12 PM

[bettymm]

wow. OP.. I recently had a very similiar experience to you, though my DD is only 3 months

First birth, 6 hrs, no problems

second birth, absolutely horrid. Without going into the gories of it, the main thing causing problems was that babys head was turned sideways which caused my cervix to swell. Extremely painful. When the OB finally examined me after an hour of excruciating pain trying to push and then trying not to push, he said straight away that babys head was turned sideways. I had had many examinations by the MW prior to that and she seemed to be unaware that was the situation. Although, one would think the midwife would be able to tell at least that your baby was bum first?

I agree with the PP that maybe some sort of Councelling might help? I dunno, i think im pretty traumatised by the whole thing too..i think about it less and less though now. I hope things improve for you and you can become at peace with what happened. Im so sorry to hear your baby suffered so badly too.

[leisamd]

my cousin had a similar experience OP.

She had twins first, and delivered vaginally.

Then she had her 2nd pregnancy, singleton. They didn't realise until 40+ hours of labour that she was breech. Apparently her Ob was apologising over and over!

I don't why sometimes these things are missed - perhaps it's difficult to feel through the contracting uterus muscles? - but I'm sorry you had such a bad experience.



This post has been edited by leisamd: 04/04/2012, 10:26 AM

[aggyw72]

Hi Op, we had a similar " how is that possible??" birth. My waters broke at 36+6, so we went in and I was examined and put onto a drip to induce due to Group B Strep. Because she was unable to easily monitor heartbeat, Dr attached a scalp monitor. After 10 hours of agony, midwife took a cursory glance and I was fully dilated with a foot visible! Big emergency and very fast c-section as DS was in serious distress. Turned out the Dr had attached the scalp monitor to DS's bottom. At my 36 week check up, the Dr had though that he might be breech, but on internal said "no, just engaged and ready to go" ! So basically, footling breech was not picked up on admission, which is kind of bad, and our midwives were prepared to side with us if we took action against the hospital. And the dept heads were very careful to get me to sign off on things when I was still recovering and out of it.
Ultimately we felt that if we had taken action, the young Dr who admitted us would have taken the fall for the hospital and we didn't think that was right. She was on her own at 3am with no other support. Unfortunately, stuff happens, mistakes are made, and hospitals are staffed by humans. It took me a long time to come to terms with such a traumatic experience, and to physically recover also.

[karablue]

What an awful experience! It must be horrible for you and have you doing the 'what if' all the time. I definitely agree with a PP on counselling if you haven't already.

I had a similar experience in the midwife and OB not picking up on problems and even labour with DS1 but thankfully I had a positive outcome and no where nearly as traumatic.

I developed pre-eclampsia and the OB did a scan I was told all was normal. Went into labour 36 hours later at 37.5weeks. Went up to the hospital and midwife attached a monitor and said no the pain isn't contractions but get this a UTI as the monitor was not picking up any contractions. Ob came and saw me 3 hours later and said give me a shot of pethidine and he'd see me in the morning. They had me lying flat on my back. Another 2 hours later I got up as I really needed to do a poo. Lucky for me and bubs a different midwife came in at that exact moment and said maybe we better have a look. I was 10cm dilated and he was born 15 minutes later. He had IUGR and my placenta was severely broken down. So why didn't the OB pick that up on the scan 1.5 days before and how the beep can a midwife rely purely on a machine to determine whether someone is in labour or not and then argue with you that you are not???

Lucky for me, someone was looking after me and DS1 that day as after a 12 months of paed appointments he was cleared of CP.

I pray for you and your DD that everything is okay and that any problems she may have isn't related to her birth.