do they break your waters with c-section?

[minkl]

anyone have any idea about all the steps in a c-section (scheduled)? I had an emergency c-section with my first and my waters were already broken. i had gone into shock before the c-section was performed...so I don't remember a great deal of it (other than the 30+ hours of laboring with no drugs before i passed out...I remember that vividly LOL!) and i am wondering what i will go through step-by-step.

[wombatclay]

You have a scheduled c/s? The actual step by step will vary a bit by hospital but basically...

You'll arrive, get into a gown or robe, have an IV inserted and you'll be given fluids while they monitor your blood pressure. They may do some monitoring of your babe's heart rate as well. You'll meet with the anesthesiologist and have a spinal or epidural placed. After the meds take hold you'll get a catheter (if they want to do the cath first ask them to wait!) and head off to surgery.

Repeat c/s take longer than primary c/s since there is scar tissue to deal with. There's no need to break the bag of water before starting the surgery...

[applejuice]

In Michelle Harrison's A Woman In Residence, she wrote about doing caesarean section surgeries. She wrote about the surgical table being tilted so that when the incision goes into the womb and into the amnion, the water would break and splash away from the doctor and onto those assisting on the the other side. She did not realize this until she had assisted and done a caesarean herself.

The book was written twenty years ago.

Technique may have changed since then, but maybe not.

[doctorjen]

Sort of on the tilting thing. Women are routinely placed tilted a little to the left to prevent the heavy uterus compressing the large blood vessels in the abdomen. The operating surgeon routinely stands on the right of the patient and the assistant on the left, so if fluid splashes downhill, the assistant is the unlucky one. My OB backup likes to operate from the left, though, so I stand on the right when I assist him - and we use a drape that has a plastic fold designed to catch any fluid or blood, so no dripping on any of us.

The membranes are ruptured when the uterine incision is made, right before the surgeon reaches in to deliver the baby.

[applejuice]

Thank you DoctorJen. I appreciate your input. Sometimes I do not read or recall things correctly.

To the OP:

Dr. Harrison has a step-by-step description of the surgical caesarean process in her book. If you can find it, it is a readable book. It describes her internship and early practice in obstetrics. In the end, she resolves to work with midwives to humanize the birth process for women. I do not know where she is now, but books like that gave me hope 20 years ago. Here we are, still in the same place.

[hetaera]

A good step by step.
Kinda graphic with wording, made me have horrid flashbacks, but seems like a good source of info.
http://ican-online.org/resources/whi..._cssurgery.pdf

[mmace]

I don't remember being tilted during my surgeries - that is really interesting!

[MissE]

I was tilted to the left I think, not much, just a little. My legs kept falling off the table, I remember that much. I didn't care anymore at that point, just wanted it to be over.

[thorn]

aI was definitely tilted to the left, because by the time they were finishing up the stitching I could feel burning on the right side, and the anesthesiologist said I needed to be tipped to the right to get the drugs into the right side of the epidural area. as soon as I was moved to recovery they tilted me to the right and the pain went away.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by mmace

I don't remember being tilted during my surgeries - that is really interesting!

I'd forgotten, but I think the nurses stuck a wedge under my hip or back after I'd had the spinal. I've spent both conscious sections (ie. under spinal, not general) in such a state of terror that I don't really trust my recollections, but the tilting does ring a bell.

[junamoss]

it is standard of care to do left tilt, so everyone should be...and legs falling off the table? OMG, we always guard the legs until they are belted in. You can have some serious damage from legs falling.

[g&a]

A friend was telling me this weekend that there is a course where we live put on by the regional health authority about what to expect for a c-section. You should see if one is available to you in your area. She knew a lot about the drugs, recovery, etc. and was able to help me undertand afterwards what had happened (her c/s was planned, mine was not).

g.

[BensMamacita]

There's a good description of how a c/s is performed here...

http://www.obgyn.net/displayarticle....-book/cs-page6

[g&a]

Originally Posted by BensMamacita

There's a good description of how a c/s is performed here...

http://www.obgyn.net/displayarticle....-book/cs-page6

Very interesting article! I doesn't explain why it FEELS LIKE your abdominal muscles have been cut. Am I the only one still wondering??

And then I wonder to myself, having only had a c/s birth, if everyone has that feeling that they can't do anything with their abdominals for months after birth (seriously, it was 6 months before I could step foot in a yoga class again). Maybe I just always attributed it to the c-section when it's really from BIRTH.

g.

[wombatclay]

Very interesting article! I doesn't explain why it FEELS LIKE your abdominal muscles have been cut.

Well, lots of things HAVE been cut during the surgery so your body may not be too specific in sending/interpreting it's "owie" messages! And just because they aren't cut doesn't mean the muscles wont hurt...retraction is still invasive/rough and it's not something nature intended. A slight diastasis yes, retraction for surgical birth no.

Something like the Tupler Technique can get that diastasis closed though and get your ab strength back sooner...

[applejuice]

Yes, Kegel and Tubler Technique exercises can help all mothers get ready for the marathon of birth and for the recovery and demands that await her after the birth.

As for other mothers, even though my DS1s birth was a horrendously painful posterior, deflexed head and ascynclitism on a Sunday morning, I went to the gym Monday morning on my ten speed, one half mile to the gym, one half mile home. I paid for it months later when I was tired all of the time. :.

The day before my DS3 was born was a Thursday. I was painting the living room of my rental house. He was born on Friday morning; I drove my three older children to school, he was their show'n'tell assignment and then I took DS3 with me to the house to finish painting the cieling.

Life goes on.