Late placenta

[Jennah_Gole]

Just wondering if anyone experienced a very late placenta according to my midwife and does anybody know what that means?

After my ds was born the midwife was waiting for the placenta...ten minutes past,
twenty minutes,
thirty minutes
...then she starts getting a bit nervous and constantly looking at the clock ...and massaging the area where the placenta is which was hard like a rock. i even started massaging it. the other midwife said no big deal just keep breastfeeding and your uterus is contracting well it should come out soon....
forty minutes,
one hour,
an hour an 15 minutes,
at an hour and a half the midwife comes in and says that she is going to have to give me meds thru a drip to help my uterus cotract even more even though it is contracting well. She couldn't get the needle in and tortured me in the process. I asked her to bring someone else to get it in. At this point, I was praying and praying that the placenta would just come out itself. I told the other midwife please can we check one last time to see if it is coming itself. she then asked me to cough and push and after about a minute it came out by itself.

I am just wondering if this has happened to anyone and did it cause any problems during postpartum and if there was any explanation given as to why it was soo late. The only thing I feel is pain in the side where the placenta was and I don't know why that is and I am almost at the six week mark and still bleeding alot. :

[XM]

An hour and a half is nothing. Your MWs need to learn some patience. Keep an eye on it, but you are probably just sore from them working you over to get it out. Did they pull on the cord? Have you passed any placenta/membrane since the birth?

My placentas usually pass about 45m-1+hr after birth. We also wait to clamp, dd1 was clamped immediately and the placenta delivered 15m later. My friend had a placenta that didn't release till 12h postpartum, with no ill effects (she had a planned UC, so there was no one there to watch the clock or otherwise mess with her, or I'm sure they would have).

[hotmamacita]

I agree with XM.

Plus, are you taking vitamin E at all? This will help with bleeding, ime.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

I think it is fine for it to take awhile to come out as long as there is not to much bleeding and the uterus is clamping down well it should just be left alone to do its thing.

[Jennah_Gole]

yup, they were pulling on the cord but they did not want to pull to hard cuz they were afraid it would snap...and I don't think I have passed anything except blood since the birth and they said the placenta was all there.

hmmm, so its normal....they made such a big deal and said the last option would be to give me an epidural and they would get a doctor to manually pull it out!!! om, I wasn't looking forward to that and thought that I had read up on labor and delivery to the point where I could make educated decisions...but lolol when it came to the placenta I had no clue!!!

wow, 12 hours - I guess an hour and a half is nothing.


I would like to hear more replies and any other experiences.

[pigpokey]

Midwives do get antsy ...

But y'know, like all stages of labor, it's possible to hamper progress if the mom is disturbed. Sounds like she was giving off some pretty bad energy.

I went over to a friend's unplanned-UC third stage. It was ninety minutes long and I myself got antsy since I was the most birth-learned person there (I am not a mw) thus clearly I needed to take on the role of worry wart . But I knew in my head, to leave her alone as much as I could while staying aware of whether she was still feeling healthy and glowing. I did suggest she try to pee so maybe it would come out. I hated interfering with her peace, hated hated hated it. Did not want to show her any worry either! On the other hand, I didn't want to withhold useful information. Wonderfully, it came out intact after a couple of cramps, and an unbelievably small amount of blood at separation.

[nichole]

just curious, did you try pushing at all in that hour and 1/2 that you were waiting?

at the next contraction i just pushed and it came on out. i hadn't even latched jason on yet.

sorry if this was a dumb or obvious question.

[orangebird]

My second placenta took an hour and a half to come out. I tried to push a bit, moved up onto the couch and my MW even gave a little tug at one point. But it finally came out after a good 90 minutes. For some reason after my last baby she was in much more of a hurry for me to get it out. As soon as I settled onto the bed snuggled with the baby she was really encouraging and pushing me to try to push it out. I'm not sure what the big deal is.

I never bled hardly anyting with any of my births. Honestly, just drops. Amazingly little blood.

[cottonwood]

One of mine took 75 minutes. Like with you, the midwife was getting antsy. Which was ridiculous because I was alert, good color and heartrate. Obviously I wasn't hemorrhaging. She was about to start fooling with the cord when her assistant suggested that I squat. That was all it took, so for subsequent births I've squatted for third stage (once the placenta had detached and I felt ready.)

[Jennah_Gole]

nichole just curious, did you try pushing at all in that hour and 1/2 that you were waiting?

no not a stupid question at all!!!!
nope, the whole time I was just breastfeeding - I didn't try coughing or pushing or anything...my other births it just came out by itself so I didn't know that I needed to try anything and she hadn't suggested until after I sat there for an hour and a half.:


thanks for the replies...at least now I know for the next time ... that is if there is a next time that I should try to get it out instead of just sitting there waiting for it to come.

[laohaire]

Mine took 3 hours.. god it was awful. After 6 hours of pushing a baby out I went on to 3 hours of pushing a placenta out.

I have no idea what was wrong, if anything was wrong at all. My HB lay midwife was clearly at least a little concerned, since she had me working hard to get it out (squatting, on toilet, on birth stool, trying different positions, etc). I really don't remember if I had any contractions, I think I didn't. I think I finally just pushed the thing out myself.

The worst part was that I didn't spend time with my baby that whole time (my mom had her). You might think, gee, why didn't you insist? Well, I was totally out of it (no drugs, just out of it from the whole process) and part of it was that I didn't know how much time was passing, and I just wasn't terribly aware in general. Plus, it hurt like hell and I was sort of focused on that.

I feel terrible to this day about it, especially since my baby didn't latch on and didn't feed and got horrible jaundice and everything, and I keep worrying about what I did wrong those first few days.

[Jennah_Gole]

Eeeeeee, three hours....oooh I am sooo sorry . ok so mine wasn't so bad eventhough it was an awful experience it ended up okay.

thanks everyone

[cottonwood]

Originally Posted by laohaire

Mine took 3 hours.. god it was awful. After 6 hours of pushing a baby out I went on to 3 hours of pushing a placenta out.

I have no idea what was wrong, if anything was wrong at all. My HB lay midwife was clearly at least a little concerned, since she had me working hard to get it out (squatting, on toilet, on birth stool, trying different positions, etc).

Most midwives are trained that the placenta *must* come out within 15 minutes, and if it doesn't, something is wrong and they therefore have to be aggressive in getting it out. This is just not true. It's a problem with modern midwifery that they've taken many of their cues from unscientific obstetric myth, and this is just one of those myths.

Three hours is an unusually long time, though, and it (and second stage for that matter) may have been prolonged specifically because of your midwife's involvement. For the hormonal process to remain undisturbed is necessary for a normal third stage. If your midwife is turning on the light, talking to you, directing you, taking your baby to check him over, watching the clock, sending off worried vibes, etc., it's likely that you will not see a normal second and third stage, because that kind of distraction and disruption interferes with hormonal release in your body.

[georgia]

ITA agree with the disruption/distraction. The placental issue was a big deal w/my second birth. In fact, it was about the only negative memory I have. It took about 45 minutes, and if my body had it's way, it prob. would have been once everyone went home! W/my third birth, the mw who attended my birth wanted to pre-empt the "long" 45 minute wait and "strongly suggested" I do the birth stool to help it arrive. I was too "in the moment" to protest. (Basically, up until this point, mw had only been around once or twice to check heart tones and then when baby was actually being born did she come in the room.) It felt like a huge intrusion w/having me get out of the pool before I wanted to, to do something I wasn't ready to do WITHOUT my baby!!! I look back and just

When the baby started screaming, I knew I had to push out the placenta NOW. I'm not kidding but it was at that point I knew if I was ever to give birth again, it would be UC. It might seem like a low priority issue, but, the managed placenta arrivals with my last two births have tinted my blissful memories...and that is

[Viriditas]

I had a UC and my placenta took 3 hours and 10 minutes to come out. It was pretty annoying waiting for so long, but I wasn't bleeding badly so I just let it take its time. I was nursing and changing positions a lot, but nothing really helped. I never felt the urge to bear down for my placenta, so I ended up just pushing anyway. My unusually long third stage is one of the MAJOR reasons I'm so glad I had a UC. I can only imagine how bad it would have been if I'd had an antsy midwife messing with things down there.

[pamamidwife]

with most of the births I attend, the placenta appears 45 minutes to a couple hours after the birth. Many times the placenta has detached, but the uterus hasn't contracted down enough to help push it out yet.

If there's no large amounts of blood loss, I say leave it be. The longest I've had in my practice was three hours and after a couple hours, we worked (getting up to the toilet, some herbs) to get it out.

[laohaire]

Originally Posted by fourlittlebirds

Most midwives are trained that the placenta *must* come out within 15 minutes, and if it doesn't, something is wrong and they therefore have to be aggressive in getting it out. This is just not true. It's a problem with modern midwifery that they've taken many of their cues from unscientific obstetric myth, and this is just one of those myths.

Three hours is an unusually long time, though, and it (and second stage for that matter) may have been prolonged specifically because of your midwife's involvement. For the hormonal process to remain undisturbed is necessary for a normal third stage. If your midwife is turning on the light, talking to you, directing you, taking your baby to check him over, watching the clock, sending off worried vibes, etc., it's likely that you will not see a normal second and third stage, because that kind of distraction and disruption interferes with hormonal release in your body.

That's probably true. In my midwife's case, I am pretty sure she left me alone for 45 minutes or so. Unfortunately the cord was too short for me to BF so after it stopped pulsating, we cut it. I don't have any recollection whatsoever about our first attempt to BF but I doubt it was successful. I wish my MW would have concentrated on that at this point.

Especially since in those 3 hours, of all the tactics used, having baby BF was NOT one of the tactics. (DH did some nipple stim but that's a substitute... why didn't I have the real thing?). It's all pretty hazy to me but I wonder how much I tried to BF during that first day... I think very little... and this is weighing on my soul very heavily. I also went to the ER probably for 3 hours, without baby. I didn't think it would take so long.

Baby ended up not eating anything (even colostrum) for 3 days until LC intervened, and saw severe (bili > 20) jaundice. Next stop was the hospital, and further baby-mama seperation as she was put in a box and only let out to eat every THREE hours, and only for 15 minutes max at a time.

Sorry to the OP for hijacking the thread, it just brought out some stuff I had been really burdened with for such a long time.