Father and daughter konked out
When she was nursing this afternoon, she threw her arms over her head, interlocked her fingers, and fell fast asleep.
The umbilical cord had a velamentous cord insertion, a fairly rare occurrence where the cord inserts in the membrances, rather than directly onto the placenta (1% of singleton pregnancies).
Hi! I'm a new reader of your blog. It was linked from another blog I frequent. It just made sense to me to start from the beginning!
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about the last picture on this post. Can you explain exactly what the whole membrane/placenta/umbilical cord thing means? I'm so confused. I'm trying to learn as much as possible about homebirthing, waterbirthing, natural birthing, etc. before I have a baby in like 7 years! It all seems so beautiful to me!
The umbilical cord usually attaches directly onto the placenta. In my case, I had a velamentous insertion, which means the umbilical cord veins & arteries attach onto the amniotic membranes first before they go into the placenta. It was cool to see because it's so rare.
ReplyDeleteHi Rixa,
ReplyDeleteI have been reading your blog for a while and am working on becoming a dona certified doula. I recently attended the birth of my sister-in-law's little boy in a hospital. She was planning an unmedicated birth, but her water broke at 35 weeks and she went straight into the hospital before starting contractions. After a couple hours they recommended she start Pitocin to get things started. She reluctantly agreed and things progressed. She declined an epidural and had only the pit and an iv for the remainder of the birth. She did great and had a healthy baby boy. Here's where it gets weird. The placenta would not come out! They brought in tools and an ultrasound and tried to dig it out, they gave her 3 or 4 different drugs to try to get it out. It would not budge. After threatening her with general anesthesia to do a d&c, they finally decided to give her an epidural and go in the OR to extract it. They had a Dr with small hands reach all the way into her uterus and peel it out. It turns out she had velamentous cord insertion like you did. They believe it's why her water broke early and why the placenta got stuck. I wanted to get your take on the situation. I just keep trying to make sense of it. I have a hunch that the extra pit, cytotec, etc they gave her to release it may have made her uterus clamp tighter. Or if they would have left it alone it would have come out on it's own in a couple hours like yours did. I just hate that she had an epidural for the placenta when she made it through the birth with no pain meds! This is the first I've heard of anyone else having this placenta abnormality. If you have a spare minute, I would love to hear your take. By the way, I loved your birth story! I also watched your videos of Inga's birth and was amazed by your calm and coolheadedness! I would love to have a home birth for my next child. Thanks for the inspiration your blog brings!