Short cord and placental abruption?

[Phoebe]

I have a friend who recently had a hospital birth. She had an epidural, baby was in distress, ended in csection. Friend said the docs said it was a good thing they did the csection because the cord was very short and would have likely cause placental abruption if baby had been pushed out. That's all the info I got...friend and I don't see even close to eye to eye on things of this nature and and questions would have been viewed as criticism. I just left it alone. But I'd like to know how common this is...for the cord to be so short that the placenta would tear away. I have heard of cords being short enough to where baby can't reach all the way to mom's breast until the placenta is born but are they really ever THAT short?

I'd like to know more about this.
Anyone?
Thanks
AMy

[Mommyleslie]

It happened to me! My last baby had a VERY short cord and twisted over his shoulder, so short that I was happy he was the eighth and I was able to push him out very quickly. He came out a little grey (unlike my other babies)and the placenta plopped out right after him. It was all bloody and full of clots. I had never seen such a bloody placenta in all my births and had never seen clotting like that on any of my placentas. And I lost a lot more blood than my other births. But everything was fine after a few hours. The baby started breathing right away too.

[JessicaS]

It can happen, truly short cords are rare, some of the dangers can depend on where the placenta is located. With short cords labor tends to be long as the baby may have difficulty descending.


My own dd's cord was short and in a true knot. I was fully dilated and she was crowning. I had wild urges to push but after four hours of that my blood pressure crashed and they did a c-section.


My midwife is planning on being extra cautious during my HBAC as there could be a repeat.

Here is an abstract of a study done

http://www.greenjournal.org/cgi/content/full/103/1/119

[Hallielynn01]

Originally Posted by abimommy

It can happen, truly short cords are rare, about 4 in 1,000 births and some of the dangers can depend on where the placenta is located. With short cords labor tends to be long as the baby may have difficulty descending.


My own dd's cord was short and in a true knot. I was fully dilated and she was crowning. I had wild urges to push but after four hours of that my blood pressure crashed and they did a c-section.

My midwife is planning on being extra cautious during my HBAC as there could be a repeat.

Sounds like me, long long labor, just couldn't get DD down till the very end, and when she did come out, they had to drain the tub once her head came out of the water and we realised she had a very short cord, could only get hr up to my belly button.

It may or may not be related, but we also had trouble getting the placenta to release after that too, the MW was trying every trick in the book, but as an hour crept by, she was getting a little worried that she was going to have to send me to the hospital for Pit. to get it out. But thank GOD it came on its own, but I did bleed a lot, a little more than normal apparently, but not enough to be a real probablem.

[Rockies5]

none of my babies could be lifted off my leg (not even onto belly) until the placenta seperated or the cord was cut. I have 5 vaginal drug and complication free births.

I was always interested in how cord length affected birth. It didn't for me. I always have read the babies activity level in utero determined the length of the cord, but this tale wasn't true for me. My babies were quite active, some doing full body flips until 39 weeks.

[JessicaS]

Originally Posted by Rockies5

none of my babies could be lifted off my leg (not even onto belly) until the placenta seperated or the cord was cut. I have 5 vaginal drug and complication free births.

I was always interested in how cord length affected birth. It didn't for me. I always have read the babies activity level in utero determined the length of the cord, but this tale wasn't true for me. My babies were quite active, some doing full body flips until 39 weeks.

My dd was very active as well.

There really hasn't been a lot of study done on it. My mom and sister each also had a short cord with one of their births.

[Rockies5]

Originally Posted by abimommy

My dd was very active as well.

There really hasn't been a lot of study done on it. My mom and sister each also had a short cord with one of their births.

Yeah I looked into it a lot and it was difficut to find an information. I haven't even been able to determine what a "short" cord is in measurments. I suppose it has something to do with where the placenta decided to stick (ie a higer placenta would make a cord seem shorter at birth).