Sub Chorionic Hematoma, anyone???

[kailotus]

Looking to hear stories from mamas who have had to deal with Sub Chorionic Hematomas (a "tear" or "bloodclot" in the uterus that can result in bleeding, miscarriage). I know it affects only about 1% of pregnant women. I have been able to find on-line support groups for women who are going through this, but those message boards are hard for me to relate to because the moms are all seeing highrisk doctors/peris and are all on a million medications, getting ultrasounds every week to check on the bloodclot and are scheduling their c-section/inductions.Reading the stories and posts on these sights makes me feel scared! I am still planning my homebirth and have done little "manage" my bloodclot. If any of you have had a hematoma, please tell me your story, and ultimately what ended up happening????

[mamatosaskia]

Hi,

I had a sch with my first pregnancy. Dd is now 3.5 years old. I had bleeding throughout my entire pregnancy, starting at about 6 weeks. I did have a few extra ultrasounds to monitor the tear and it was declared gone by 6 months. However, at 33 weeks I woke up early and had to go the bathroom. I had a gush of blood that filled the toilet and immediately called my midwife. I was admitted to the hospital and lingered there for 16 days before they were convinced that I wasn't going into labor and they let me go home on partial bedrest. I also had to have twice weekly non-stress tests to monitor the baby. I was able to go into natural labor, with my midwife, and had a drug free, textbook birth at 40 weeks gestation. Dd did spend two weeks in the NICU, but that was because I was a GBS carrier and she contracted meningitis, so unrelated to the sch.

The gist of it was that while in the hospital, hopped up on all the drugs to stop labor, my heartrate was elevated. When they were monitoring the baby they kept picking up MY heartrate, which compared to a baby was low (although it was about 110 bpm, high for an adult). They were concerned that the baby was not responding well to my braxton hicks contractions. When I finally figured out that it was my heartbeat they were picking up, I requested a finger pulse monitor for me and that convinced them that the baby was fine.

Mine is a worse case scenario, however. For many women it does resolve on its own and you don't have to worry about it.

I hope that this response gives you hope! I don't want to scare you about the bleeding. At the end of the day, my daugther is fine and very impatient for me to get off the computer now!

Good luck

jacqueline

[kailotus]

just to clarify!!! I was on bedrest for 8 weeks, and have had three ultrasounds, so I have done something to manage the SCH...but sometimes I still worry and wonder if I should be doing more.

[MonP'titBoudain]

I had a sch with ds and it was really no biggie, ulitmately. I had one three day episode of heavy bleeding and a couple ultrasounds at that time. Then I had my 20 week and they said it was gone. I went ahead with an ob because of the political climate here with mw. (I wouldn't have been able to deliver with a mw in the hospital, she wouldn't have even been able to say she was anything but my doula) and I wanted an established relationship with an ob in case of any problems... but he wasn't high risk and he didn't consider sch to necesarily be highrisk.

In my case, things went very smoothly and resolved pretty quickly. I had a good, med-free birth in the hospital, although he did come at 35 weeks. And I could have easliy been at home, no problems! Good luck!

[Stace]

Hmm...we discovered I have an SCH a couple of weeks ago. I had some slight bleeding.....just a bit of bright red bleeding, then it progressed into nothing but old blood. I haven't had any bleeding in at least a week. They did perform an ultrasound to confirm what was going on with me, but I haven't had any more yet. I'll be having a regularly scheduled ultrasound on the 5th (normal 18-20 week scan), but they haven't put me on any sort of medications or anything, just told me to take it easy. Most of them resolve themselves by 20 weeks or so, and mine's pretty small so I don't see it lingering or causing other issues.

[momtoafireteam]

I found out I have a *very* minor one on monday. I have never had so much as spotting, cramps, anything. It was just our routine u/s and they saw a mass behind the placenta, looked closer and it was a pocket of blood. I have to be monitored more closely from now on and am on pelvic rest, but other than that the Dr seemed very nonchalant. He also assured me that in minor cases, the chance of having a successful pregnancy is crazy high. So I am just being slightly more careful and letting what will be, be.

Good Luck!

[raingyrl]

I found out that I had a small one at an 8 week ultrasound (I'm now almost 19 weeks).

Doctor's advice: Doom and gloom.

Midwife's advice: Live your life as if you didn't have this information.

My advice: Stay away from those scary websites!


I took the MW's advice and continued to exercise (walking 2-3 miles a day) as it was sometimes the only thing that helped my terrible morning sickness. My midwife believes that SCHs are actually more common than statistics show. Most women simply don't find out that they have them...and they absorb or you bleed a little and they are gone. In most cases, according to her, they do not cause miscarriages.

I'm planning to get a 20 week u/s...so I will ask more about it then.

Rain

[otherwordlyglow]

I was diagnosed with one yesterday at about 10 weeks. It's about a centimeter and was found after I had some bleeding (bright red, slightly clotty) and went in for an ultrasound that afternoon. They all basically say: wait and see. If bleeding gets really bad or you have pain, let us know. Not all that concrete of information from them but that's about all they could offer.

[rad]

I was diagnosed this pg with one at 12 weeks after several bleeding episodes. I was told to "take it easy" (whatever that means with 4 kids). I had an u/s again 2 weeks later to get a better look and there was still a decent pool of blood. But luckily the bleeding had stopped completely by then. Then 3 weeks later I went back (around 19 wks) and it was nearly gone. I found a couple site and noticed the trend you're talking about, so I stayed away. The specialists advice was growth u/s every 4 wks and NST starting at 28wks. That seemed way extreme for me. He seemed to think I would go into preterm labor any second. My midwife had no experience with them and kind of asked me to ask my homebirth/ncb friendly dr. His advice was go back at 28 wks or so and make sure it's totally gone. But there was no reason for growth u/s's or NST. He sees no reason why I can't go on to have a perfectly normal homebirth again. We were thinking about finding an OB just in case something went wrong and we needed to go to a closer hospital. But I figured if that happens I'll just go and not worry about it since most likely it'd be whoever was on call anyways.

[StephNelson]

I had a SCH with my last pregnancy. Found it due to some bleeding at 10 weeks, bleed/spotted for approx 3.5 weeks, had an U/s to verify that it had resloved itself and it had.
I was seen the whole time by a midwife and had my baby boy at home and everything was wonderful...

I know it is scary mama, but try to stay calm and keep in mind that more often than not all is well and it is no big deal... **Hugs**

Another note: I had 3 M/c before the pregnancy with the SCH and have a healthy 5 month old as a result of that pregnancy

~Steph

[Bella Mia]

Here's my story

I announced I was preg on Tues, woke up and was bleeding like crazy Wed (at 12 weeks along) and went in for an u/s. They found the SCH and the dr said it's quite common - happens in maybe 25% of all pregnancies but many never even know they have one.

She told me it usually corrects itself, no worries, go back to regular activities. After a week of more bleeding, I called my ob and was ordered on bed rest until it stopped and stayed stopped. I was down for about 10 weeks before moving around more again. I personally experienced that the more I did, the more I bled, and the less I did, the less I bled so I think bed rest was the best thing for me.

I have just been released back to my "regular" activities and I think everything will be fine from here. I only had 2 ultrasounds the whole time and will probably only have one more in my 3rd trimester to make sure everything looks ok.

I think if you're through with the bleeding, you're good to go. Personally, I'm avoiding picking heavy things up, etc but that's about it. I'm going to go back to yoga this weekend and hope to have an easy time from here on out!

Good luck!!