Fetal Heartrate Decelerations in Previous Labour/Difficulty Passing Head?

[stardust599]

Hi Guys

I just had my midwife out where we talked about my wishes for a homebirth (I'm not quite sure yet) due to all the interventions in hospital with my daughter and not getting to make ANY choices.

The midwife was hugely supportive although did say I will have to see the consultant in late pregnancy to get the OK as I had problems in my last pregnancy (intra-uterine-growth-restriction and unexplained bleeding throughout). I have already started the unexplained bleeding this time again although FX'd nothing for 2 weeks!

My daughter was born low birth weight at 5lb8.

I went over my labour notes with midwife today.

Labour was horrible. I was induced with propess which started my contractions at 1-2 minutes from 12pm onwards, at 7pm my water were artificially ruptured as they felt my contractions weren't long/strong enough and at 10pm I was started on syntocin which was the most painful, horrible experience of my life. Throught labour my daughter showed no signs of distress until pushing when her heartrate dropped to 60bpm with each push/contraction. She was recovering in between until the last couple of pushes when the emergency buzzers were pulled for forceps in theatre and hundreds of doctors and the resuscitation team came in. Her head was completely stuck although she was past crowning.

She was born in the next few minutes (unassisted) and was purple/blue but did cry and pink up within a minute. She didn't need any oxygen or anything. I *think* she had reasonable APGAR scores.

I had great difficulty passing her head even though she was only 5lb8 and I felt like she was stuck behind the bones in my vagina (only way I can describe it) and ripping me in half. I honestly thought her head wasn't going to fit out. I was on my back (wasn't allowed to move due to continuous monitoring) and it felt like my bum was stopping her coming out? When they eventually let me turn over she came out fairly quickly within 10mins. I had severe grazing but didn't actual tear so it wasn't my perineum that was the problem - I literally felt like it was the bones at either side of my vagina she couldn't fit through!

This is the only thing that scares me about homebirth! What would happen if it happened again? It's a 30minute transfer to hospital although the ambulance post is only minutes away. If this baby is bigger what happens if the head gets stuck? Would the head just get stuck and not come out until baby ran out of oxygen? They don't have forceps etc. at home so how would they get baby out? Would an episiotomy help?

 

[Mervs Mum]

Hi stardust. It's great that your Mw has gone thought the notes with you. Did she talk to you about the 'cascade of interventions'? What stands out to me about the story is that it has this classic one thing leading to another pattern. So as soon as they start to try to hurry along your labour with syntocinon youve had your first intervention....this will almost inveitably lead to another...and so on. Research has shown that Continuous monitoring does not improve outcomes for mums and babies but does increase the risks of things like youre describing happening. Being on your back either for monitoring or with an epidural increases the chances of these types of things happening too. So had you been upright your baby may have been able to make the adjustments required to be born more easily.

You have lots of time to do lots of reading and research so you can decide of home birth is the right choice for you. There's no rush to decide and also you don't need anyone's permission. Your consultant and mw can give their thoughts on where you give birth but ultimately it's your informed decision to make. It's worth finding your local home birth support group too. Even people who aren't 100% sure that they will be planning a home birth are welcome along to help them learn more. Groups are often attended by independent midwives, antenatal teachers and doulas so you can ask questions and get information that you might not be given by your NHS carers as while mws are often very supportive of homebirth, they do have to work within their employers policies and guidelines which are not always in the best interests of the woman and her baby.

Maybe think about getting some books in the meantime. Anything by Ina May Gaskin or Sheila Kitzinger will be informative and is full of evidence based research etc and positive birth stories to inspire you too x