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Question about how this was handled, just because it made me uncomfortable
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Thank you so much, mwherbs.
I didn't see blood before the cord came off-I mean my sister was bloody from the birth, but I saw no gushes or other flowing blood though to be honest if it was just a trickle I wouldn't have noticed or thought it was significant. My sister was holding the babe, looking at him and stroking him, and he was near the breast/touching it but not nursing. And at some point right after the birth there were pictures and Dad on the cell phone announcing the birth-all those distracting things you mentioned. No contractions. Soft uterus.
I did not realize the cord can lose integrity and pop off easily after birth, but that makes sense.
There was a short delay between the cord coming off and the midwife removing clots-I can't say how long. One or two minutes. Probably closer to one minute, time was moving in that peculiarly slow way and I didn't look at the clock. It makes sense that you say it was partially detached because it takes time for clots to form.
The placenta was clearly torn when it was finally out, which seemed to me (in my non-professional, uneducated state) to be consistent with a partially detached placenta.
You've helped set my mind at ease. I really have thought very highly of these midwives, and I honestly think they handled the emergency very well when it happened. After a long talk with my husband about this, I think my discomfort came from being very protective of my sister, from not having professional knowledge about birth, and from my own misgivings about the whole medical model of childbirth (which is a big influence at this birth center, even though they're a big improvement over a hospital). I feel better after reading what you have to say.
Again, I can't thank you enough for sharing your knowledge. I cannot tell you how much you have set my mind at ease about this.
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I didn't see blood before the cord came off-I mean my sister was bloody from the birth, but I saw no gushes or other flowing blood though to be honest if it was just a trickle I wouldn't have noticed or thought it was significant. My sister was holding the babe, looking at him and stroking him, and he was near the breast/touching it but not nursing. And at some point right after the birth there were pictures and Dad on the cell phone announcing the birth-all those distracting things you mentioned. No contractions. Soft uterus.
I did not realize the cord can lose integrity and pop off easily after birth, but that makes sense.
There was a short delay between the cord coming off and the midwife removing clots-I can't say how long. One or two minutes. Probably closer to one minute, time was moving in that peculiarly slow way and I didn't look at the clock. It makes sense that you say it was partially detached because it takes time for clots to form.
The placenta was clearly torn when it was finally out, which seemed to me (in my non-professional, uneducated state) to be consistent with a partially detached placenta.
You've helped set my mind at ease. I really have thought very highly of these midwives, and I honestly think they handled the emergency very well when it happened. After a long talk with my husband about this, I think my discomfort came from being very protective of my sister, from not having professional knowledge about birth, and from my own misgivings about the whole medical model of childbirth (which is a big influence at this birth center, even though they're a big improvement over a hospital). I feel better after reading what you have to say.
Again, I can't thank you enough for sharing your knowledge. I cannot tell you how much you have set my mind at ease about this.
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Hey, after feeling so good in my last post now I feel very upset again.
I asked my sister how she felt about her birth experience, and about the manual extraction of her placenta. I wanted to hear how she was handling it, so I didn't mention my misgivings. She told me that she asked the midwives if that (the retained placenta and hemorrhage) was something she'd have to worry about again. The midwife said "well, it happens. We could have waited a few hours for the placenta, but protocal dictates 30 minutes." So this reinforces my instinct that this didn't have to happen. They were rushing her just to satisfy "protocol", and if they hadn't pulled, if they'd waited for her to have contractions, if they'd given her body a little time to do what it had to do, there's a chance she wouldn't have hemorrhaged and had to go through that-normal loss of cord integrity or not. There was no indication she was hemorrhaging before they pulled-nothing in the midwives words, voices or actions.
This just totally reinforces my belief that birth belongs at home, and my regret about not having my babies at home, and my feeling of being so very lucky that I and my babies escaped the medical birth system healthy and without this kind of trauma. At this moment I feel rather disgusted. When my sister's life has calmed down I will be sharing some research about this issue with her. I don't think this had to happen, and I'd hate to see her risk going through this again. At the very least her decisions regarding her next birth should be truly informed. Protocol.
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I asked my sister how she felt about her birth experience, and about the manual extraction of her placenta. I wanted to hear how she was handling it, so I didn't mention my misgivings. She told me that she asked the midwives if that (the retained placenta and hemorrhage) was something she'd have to worry about again. The midwife said "well, it happens. We could have waited a few hours for the placenta, but protocal dictates 30 minutes." So this reinforces my instinct that this didn't have to happen. They were rushing her just to satisfy "protocol", and if they hadn't pulled, if they'd waited for her to have contractions, if they'd given her body a little time to do what it had to do, there's a chance she wouldn't have hemorrhaged and had to go through that-normal loss of cord integrity or not. There was no indication she was hemorrhaging before they pulled-nothing in the midwives words, voices or actions.
This just totally reinforces my belief that birth belongs at home, and my regret about not having my babies at home, and my feeling of being so very lucky that I and my babies escaped the medical birth system healthy and without this kind of trauma. At this moment I feel rather disgusted. When my sister's life has calmed down I will be sharing some research about this issue with her. I don't think this had to happen, and I'd hate to see her risk going through this again. At the very least her decisions regarding her next birth should be truly informed. Protocol.
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