Why do some babies get distressed during labour/delivery?

[tinkerbelle93]

I'm just wondering because my son became distressed and it resulted in an emergency forceps delivery, narrowly avoiding a c-section.

I went into labour naturally and stayed at home until 7cm using massage, water and relaxation for pain relief. He was picked up as being in distress not long after arriving at hospital so I had not had any drugs or an epidural.

Is it just 'one of those things' that doesn't really have a known cause? Is it more common with first babies? Am I more likely to have this happen again because it happened before?

Obviously I have heard the whole being induced/epidurals thing being blamed but neither of those things were involved in my birth. xx

 

[irish_cob]

I know it can be to do with the umbilical cord, if a part of it is trapped between the baby and your uterus it can get compressed when you have a contraction and that can lead to the baby's heart rate dropping. Also if the cord is wrapped round the baby in a particularly severe way it can actually stop the baby dropping down and being born. I'm not sure what else would cause the baby to be distressed, it's got to be due to the supply of oxygen from the placenta and umbilical cord.

 

[Amygdala]

The only way of really knowing what happened in your case would be to ask for a birth debrief, during which a midwife or doctor will look through your notes with you and explain what exactly happened and why certain decisions were made

In my case, baby's heart rate kept dipping because the cord was wrapped around baby's head.
I think sometimes labour is just a bit too stressful for baby though, particularly if they're in a bad position so there a strong contractions for a long time without much progress.