Back injuries during child birth.

[saharasky]

I have been googling to no avail.

The other day a client of mine experienced a back injury during child birth. She was in the hospital (intervention free!) and pushing on her side when I felt (and heard) something pop in her lower back. An hour and a half later she pushed out a beautiful 8lb baby girl. Brought her straight to the breast (everything was perfect). She was on her mom's chest for well over an hour before we needed to move her mom to the bathroom. Turns out my client could not even lift her legs (her right sort of but her left not at all) ...she was in excruciating pain whenever she tried. She wound up staying in the hospital days longer than she wanted and being catheterized because she could not walk to the bathroom at all (she could barely roll on the bed without extreme pain). A CT scan yesterday morning showed that she had seperated her sacroiliac joint and herniated the disc above it (OUCH!). We snuck her chiropractor into the hospital and after being adjusted she is doing much better. The chiroppractor was shocked at how injured she was.

I am wondering how common this sort of back injury is during birth ...and if there's anything we could have suggested to prevent it? Anyone have any experience with this?

[memiles]

Not sure how common it is, but I had a client with a similar injury. Arrived at the hospital complete, pushed for quite a long time (3-4 hours), ended up with a vacuum assisted delivery. She ended up with quite a hard, long recovery requiring chiro, physical therapy, etc. For what it's worth, she had a pre-existing back injury, so I'm not sure how much of what occurred was aggravation of something else and how much was new.

My chiropractor has told me the story of listening to his SIL's tailbone break while she was pushing. He had been working with her midwife throughout labor to help her, so I'm not sure how preventable something like this would be.

[TO Doula]

Originally Posted by saharasky

I have been googling to no avail.

<snip>

I am wondering how common this sort of back injury is during birth ...and if there's anything we could have suggested to prevent it? Anyone have any experience with this?

My guess is that if you're having trouble googling it, it's not common. I've attended 120 births and taught hundreds of women prenatal classes and I've never heard of anything quite like this. (I'm terrified of saying that, because it means I'm gonna see it soon, right?)

The human body is an amazingly variable thing. I'm sorry your client had such a strange, painful experience. I'm going to make a mental note that chiropractic helped, in case I do come across something like this. The fact that she had a prior relationship with a chiro makes me wonder about her history, however.

[Kristimomof4]

This happened to me with out the herniated disc. I couldn't find anyone who could help for about 6 weeks. I couldnt walk or do ANYTHING. Was extremely frustrating and still is to some degree. My sacroilliac joints are still kind of weak and ache at times. I don't have any helpful advice other to say that it happened to me too.

[newmommy27]

I have a friend who fractured her tailbone while pushing...it was extremely pain ful

[Peppamint]

Originally Posted by newmommy27

I have a friend who fractured her tailbone while pushing...it was extremely pain ful

I have a friend also who broke her tailbone during one of her births. I have to say that I think broken tailbones would be a lot more common that back injuries (at least the ones unrelated to epidural use).

[RolliePollie]

Just wanted to chime in and say that my tailbone was fractured during labor. I forced on my back for 12 hrs and didn't even get a chance to push. I was in all kinds of uncomfortable supine positions trying to defend myself. Ugh. ANYWAYS! When I brought up the pain I was having to my MEDwife she dismissed me completely. It wasn't until about 7 months later when I decided to see I chiropractor that I learned of my injury. It was terrible not being able to sit without excruciating pain for months and months! And that was only part of it.