Upset about DSs Birth... Hyperglyceamic and problems on the ward

[lilwelshyrs]

Hi all,

I'm still finding this hard to write about, so please bear with me.
My DS was born just over 7 weeks ago by ECS. It all went well...ish. The procedure was fine and he was healthy but he didn't cry enough so I couldn't do skin to skin like I wanted to when he was first born.
My DH got to hold him but he couldnt do skin to skin because DS was so purple. The midwife kept taking him back to the table thing to do whatever it was he needed to get the purple colour down.
I couldn't have held him anyway as I was shaking so much from the epidural.

So DH was told to take DS into recovery where I would be along shortly. DS was born at 1:24. Obviously they had to stitch me up so I don't think DH and DS went away until about 2pm. I finally came into recovery at approx 3pm (I am struggling on remembering details).

My midwife had to go on a lunch break and I had a recovery nurse who was trying to get my BP down. In theatre, my BP kept dropping so the aneathatist kept giving me something to bring it back up. She realised that my BP was v low but I was not reacting to the reading... So she suspected the cuff was the wrong size/dodgy. So after all this medication to make my BP rise, in recovery with the correct size cuff on, my BP was TOO high!
So the recovery nurse was focussing on my BP and seeing if I could wiggle my toes or anything. The whole time I can hear my DS rooting... He's swaddled in DHs proud arms. My DM is also in the room and is concerned about the fact that no one is showing me how to breastfeed my newborn baby.
The recovery nurse said she wasnt allowed to show me but when she finally went to see if she could find a midwife, there was no one available.

My DM kicked up a bit of a fuss and in the end a midwife came in but I was on the ruddy phone to my Dad. I was saying a rushed goodbye but the midwife had walked out :(
Mum got upset and got the midwife to come back in again. She "showed" me how to latch my DS on and left me to it... I know now that he wasn't latched at all! I took a photo of him at my breast and the time on that is 5pm! It took them 2 hours to show me how to breastfeed and even then it wasn't successful :(

I was wheeled off into the main ward and all I can remember of my time there was the nurses making sure I was getting up and walking about. It was incredibly hard to do and lying back down made me cry out in agony :( My DH had to lower me into the bed as I couldn't do it on my own.

The nurse wanted to remove my catheter that evening but I said no as I was unable to get up quickly enough if I needed the toilet. I had to then keep on pressing the assistance button as my catheter was left for hours before it got emptied... She'd remark how full it was each time

So the hyperglycaemic bit. DS got taken to SCBU as the doctor felt his bloods were too low... I was heartbroken. I cried all night. DH went to SCBU every hour to look at our son as I wasnt strong enough to walk all the way there.
DS was then FF by cup by a nurse on SCBU. We tried BF the following morning, but he was too sleepy to latch properly initially.

So my question is... I am a first time mum. I did not know how to breast feed. From what i remember, no one came to help me or make sure i was breast feeding once I was on the main ward... And it took 3 and a half hours before DS was even shown my breast after he was first born.

Is this why he ended up in SCBU? Thinking about his birth still makes me feel incredibly sad and heartbroken. However I try not to get hung up on it as I have a beautiful healthy boy who is happily breastfeeding away and is currently sleeping through the fireworks and DH's snoring!

Any knowledge or experiences of this sort of thing? (The SCBU stuff... Not snoring )

Apologies... This has become quite the essay!

[stairway]

Hi lil
I'm a student nurse so I will try and give NY experience from the other side.
The recovery nurses rightly or wrongly are just trying to do what they are trained for at to avoid any medical emergencies. While it seems bizarre they can't help you with breast feeding given the intimate care nurses give in general maybe there is a reason for this. I know nurses can't do things like clip nails.
Making you walk up and down is to reduce the risk of blood clots.
The other issues like the catheter bag and no midwife available is probably due to staff shortages.
Hth and congratulations.

[3littlefrogs]

It sounds as though you and your Ds were quite poorly immediately after the CSection.

The fact that your DS was purple and the midwife had to keep taking him back to the Resus table sounds like he was not breathing adequately and needed to be helped with oxygen/suction. That would have been the priority for the midwife at that time - not skin to skin or breast feeding. Hopefully you can see that making sure your baby was breathing was the top priority at that time.

The recovery nurse was correctly focusing on your post op condition. the period immediately after an operation is potentially very high risk - there was a problem with your BP that needed to be sorted. Again - the priority was to stabilise you and keep you safe.

Getting you mobilising is very important to prevent blood clots - which can be fatal. Encouraging you to get your bladder working normally as soon as possible is also very important to avoid potential infection/bladder problems.

Hypoglycaemia in newborns does happen. It needs to be corrected, either by feeding or with intravenous glucose.

I am sorry that you had a bit of a difficult time. It sounds like there were a couple of things that could have been managed better. I think you should contact the senior midwife at the hospital and ask for a debrief so that you can talk it through.

Congratulations on your DS - it is great that everything is going well now.

[lilwelshyrs]

I appreciate that there are staff shortages and the midwives were stretched with the c sections that day.

Yes, i totally understand and appreciate that the reason why i didnt get to hold my son immediately was because he wasnt doing amazingly... I mentioned it as it was part of the experience as opposed to being pissed off about it, iyswim.

So the consensus is that the hyperglycaemia wasnt caused by anything, just an unfortunate thing that happened?

[EMS23]

My first DD was born quite small and had Hypoglaceimia which resulted in her being NG (tube down her nose) fed for 4 days.
It was absolutely devastating time for me. I developed horrendous PND and I put some of that down to the frankly awful birth (forceps), failure to breastfeed and the tube feeding etc etc.
There is so much more that contributed to it but at the time, I focussed solely on the birth experience. I couldn't get past it.

Nothing I say will help you but please be kinder to yourself. The birth experience is a moment in time. It's taken me 5 years and another baby to be able to honestly say that I'm better and it wasn't all the fault of the birth experience.

Your baby may have developed Hypoglaceimia anyway - there are so many factors at play when a baby is born.

However, you would be perfectly within your rights to ask to review your hospital notes with a midwife. You don't have to do it now but it can be a healing experience and help you understand why things happened as they did.
I believe you can ask the PALS service at your hospital or arrange it via your GP.
A friend did this and found it hugely helpful.
Best of luck and bloody well done on successfully establishing breastfeeding after all that!

[TaliZorah]

I'm so sorry this happened! I had a very similar experience. ECS and DS was blue and not breathing. He was resuscitated and taken to SCBU then transferred to NICU on a ventilator. I didn't see him for that day other than through the incubator for 5 minutes before they moved him. He had bottles in NICU and so bf didn't work.

They can be knobs after a cesarean. They tried to take mine out too before I could get to the loo. One woman also pulled me up when I asked her not to and started undressing me. Another said I was being a wuss asking for painkillers.

I got transferred to another hospital and the care was much better there!

I would ask for a debrief if I were you

[lilwelshyrs]

Thank you EMS . I didnt realise you could do through notes with a midwife afterwards. There were other ward issues I has whilst we were there (like poor communication between shifts and to me and DH... Also I didnt feel like I could ask for any help as I found some of the staff very unapproachable). We were in for a total of 3 nights and 4 days.
We would have gone home earlier but DS was on antibiotics as they were concerned he had sepsis so we were waiting for test results to come back. Thankfully he didn't.

They suggested he was tube fed if his blood results didn't improve but thankfully they did. Sorry to see your DD had to go through that :( It was enough seeing his cannulla in his hand :(

Thank you for your reply xx

[lilwelshyrs]

Wow, Tali , that sounds awful! I had heard nothing but good things about my hospital and I was confident going there. A few midwives were amazing but a number of them made me feel like an awful mum... Like one told me off for having DS in just a baby gro and not two layers despite the fact the ward waa boiling and he was tucked under about 6 layers of blankets... And he had come back to me from SCBU in one layer so how was I to know?!

[TheXxed]

I don't remember anyone teaching me how to BF, I don't even remember the midwife asking how I was feeding my baby. I gave birth in a v v busy teaching hospital.

[TheXxed]

Have you thought about asking for a debrief?

[TaliZorah]

lil that's so ridiculous. I had DS under 2 blankets and they moaned saying it should be 3. They also moaned I had the window open but it was really hot and sticky.

I had one midwife at the good hospital who patronised me. I was 22 and single and she kept coming in every time he cried watching me to "support" me I felt like I was being judged and it implied I couldn't cope.

[LumpySpaceCow]

Congratulations!
I think it would be beneficial if you had a debrief with a supervisor of midwives who can go through everything with you.
Regarding the hypoglycaemia; babies who are born full term and healthy (with no history of gestational diabetes, maternal high blood pressure) have a lot of fat stores to maintain a normal blood sugar and some feed very infrequently after birth but their sugars remain fine. Although the golden rule is to feed as soon as possible after birth, this unfortunately wasn't possible in your birth as you were the immediate priority.
Other things that can make a baby have low blood sugar are a low temperature (as baby wasn't in skin to skin and midwife kept taking him to check him, he could have gotten cool. He would then use his sugar stores to warm up), infection (which is why they started him on the antibiotics in case he had an infection) and respiratory distress. His sugars were probably low due to a couple of factors (the not feeding for 3 hours alone is very unlikely to cause low blood sugars) and these should have been explained to you by the midwives and the nurses on SCBU.
Hope you get some clarity on the situation and it becomes less distressing.

[lilwelshyrs]

I will definitely ask for a debrief and go through my notes.

The ward was incredibly busy and the midwives were clearly stretched and stressed out... But it's a very emotional time for everyone and i guess it must be hard to constantly have the compassion flowing when they are stretched beyond capacity?

Once DS was back with me, and during his time in SCBU, the midwives were very helpful in showing me how to get him to latch on. It was that first day where no one helped hence why I was wondering if that's where the root of the problems lay.
One midwife (we think she was the head midwife but not sure) even admitted we had slipped through the net when it came to feeding. But that was the day we had a fantastic shift of staff who got us feeding successfully and home all in the same day!

[lilwelshyrs]

LumpySpaceCow thank you... Such a clear explanation. No one did a whole lot of explaining to us until one day a midwife assistant asked if we were OK and DH and I (me in tears, DH almost) said we didnt really know what was going on and she sat down and went through our notes with us.
I'm glad that it probably wasnt DSs lack of breastfeeding that lead him to SCBU.

[TaliZorah]

lil I think that's it they're busy and it's just their job whereas it's really nerve wracking for us particularly if the babies aren't well.

Glad you got it sorted!

[TaliZorah]

The feeding that is

[lilwelshyrs]

i guess i need to remember that it's such a small moment in my DSs life and he isnt affected by it and wont remember it xx

[TaliZorah]

He won't! You will both be fine congratulations and hope you are both well

[Fugghetaboutit]

No one showed me how to breastfeed either. MWs were all very busy. I watched YouTube videos leading up to birth and went to antenatal class that showed us.
Ds came on Christmas day so there was no lactation consultant in or anything. Sometimes you have to work things out for yourself I guess

[Doublebubblebubble]

When I had my c section the worst part for me was having the catheter removed too early too. Literally run walking to the toilet (which felt like it was about 4 miles away - it was only across the corridor) after major abdominal surgery is no fun (as I'm sure you're all aware). I definitely recommend a debrief as they are extremely useful. Everything is always so blurry even if you've had a svd with no complications. X congrats too x

[unimaginativename13]

I had the same story as you except the CS but did have a epidural.

My DS had to be formula fed after due to blood sugars. I had gestational diabetes so I was aware this could happen and I also struggled to get him to latch- hence the drop in blood sugar and the stay in neonatal after a stressful labour and antibiotics.

What strikes me tho is how you feel about it, has this been playing on your mind the whole time?

I don't mean to sound patronising but your story is like mine and many others I've spoken too.

Are you enjoying life 7 weeks on or does this effect you?

[Tiggeryoubastard]

I never had anybody show me how to breastfeed, though mine are now in their 20's. I just did it, not putting down your experience at all, but I don't understand why you needed to be shown, and why your mother was making such a big deal about it.

[Fugghetaboutit]

Yes, sounds a leeetle demanding, op. Midwives are very overworked and aren't actually there to show you what to do, it's a bonus if they do!
I was so grateful for one who came in and checked on me at night and I had soaked the bed with blood, she stripped me off and changed my clothes and the bed as I couldn't walk from the epidural and was lovely about it.

[JellyBabiesYum]

I don't understand the comments by people saying they weren't shown how to breastfeed. Just because you didn't need support doesn't mean that OP shouldnt ask for help and shouldn't be offered support. A lot of women and babies need support with breastfeeding.

[Fugghetaboutit]

I would've loved support as a new mum but didn't expect it from overworked midwives. I instead used my initiative and learnt myself.

[MooneyWormtailPadfootProngs]

Part of the midwives job is to support the mother. It's not unreasonable to expect to be shown how to breastfeed

I had to ask to be shown how to breast and bottle feed as I had no idea