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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think this may be a good idea? Childbirth related

57 replies

Justanideamaybe · 16/08/2021 23:57

Not a health care professional.
I am a mother who’s had a very near miss with a poorly managed birth , very close thing. My sister has had to deliver in a very dangerous way , my friend has serious injuries from a huge , poorly positioned baby. I’m just thinking , shouldn’t it be procedure to do an ultrasound on arrival at hospital in labour? Would it not be wise to have a quick look at where baby is, the position, the size , the blood flow through the cord? Give the mother a choice? My son was almost born bollocks first , huge, cord around his neck , he would almost certainly have suffered some oxygen deprivation and I some serious damage to get him out quickly. Luckily we were saved by a consultant who responded to the red button and c-sectioned him out within 8 minutes. It was a busy and chaotic night in that hospital and the dr that answered the red button complained that the ultrasound machine was ‘ the wrong type, a gynae machine, set to the wrong settings or something … but within 20 seconds she saw that my son was breech, strangled and fat… no way he was being dragged out by forceps. The right call was made and we all made it . If they’d done that scan on arrival at hospital, he’d never had been in danger in the first place. I’d have been wheeled up to wait for the inevitable section. Some babies are in the wrong position , tangled in cords , too fat and all kinds of problems that can make birth so risky. Why don’t they do a quick scan in labour? Just before birth? It could save so many horrible labours or poorly or dead babies . Why doesn’t it happen?

OP posts:
Lagomtransplant · 17/08/2021 00:04

It's a routine part of care in the rest of Europe and the absence of it in the UK has been frequently highlighted by European experts as one of the leading causes of porer obstetric outcomes in the UK.

Woolver23 · 17/08/2021 00:04

Agree

PermanentTemporary · 17/08/2021 00:07

Really interesting. Glad you're ok.

somuchcoffeeneeded · 17/08/2021 00:09

You are right. It should happen. I don’t know why not. Is it because there would need to be 24 hour sonographers? Our government doesn’t much like paying for the nhs to function well as a 24 hour service.

OwlinaTree · 17/08/2021 00:11

I agree. My baby was born tangled in the cord, sadly she didn't survive the oxygen deprivation. There is no guarantee that a scan before they induced me would have shown this as babies can move around during the labour. But it might save some babies.

Eatenpig · 17/08/2021 00:12

I had just that. They thought DC2 was breech so scanned ..then realised back2back as my DC1 had been. But took 90 min to give birth second time not many hours and forceps. So agree if any issues suspected

Eatenpig · 17/08/2021 00:14

@OwlinaTree

I agree. My baby was born tangled in the cord, sadly she didn't survive the oxygen deprivation. There is no guarantee that a scan before they induced me would have shown this as babies can move around during the labour. But it might save some babies.
So sad. Heartbreaking. We have a family member whose baby was tangled in the cord & died a day before induction due. So so cruel.
SleepingStandingUp · 17/08/2021 00:15

I'm so sorry @OwlinaTree Flowers

Agree with you op. A last minute scan might habe identified the bowels in DSs lung cavity too which would have helped

olidora63 · 17/08/2021 00:16

Yes agree..I had polyhydramnious with two of my children and they were basically turning 360 degrees right up until birth…both delivered by Caesarean section.

AntiMaskersAreTwats · 17/08/2021 00:18

Most of NHS pregnancy care is shite with many mums and babies left injured and/or traumatised that could have been prevented. My babies and I only just survived a shitty NHS birth and aftercare, thank goodness I don’t have to go through that again. I’d rather pay and have a decent experience but, again, that’s not really possible in our system unless you are near London.

olidora63 · 17/08/2021 00:19

@OwlinaTree…am so sorry,such an awful tragedy for you and your family 💐

OwlinaTree · 17/08/2021 00:23

Thank you all for your kind words. It was a few years ago now. It was something we raised during the aftermath with the hospital, it is a shame nothing had changed really.

Original poster
Justanideamaybe · 17/08/2021 00:23

@OwlinaTree
I’m so sorry. That is the most awful pain . I can’t imagine what you went through. I hope you’re doing okay . And there is no guarantee anything could have changed the outcome . However , at their most vulnerable, it must help their chances if we can see as much info before birth as possible. I hope we can change this somehow. Save some suffering . I’m going to start a petition . Try to get it seen by government. It takes seconds to look. They must do it .

OP posts:
metalmutha · 17/08/2021 00:23

@justanideamaybe I had this exact conversation with my DH after my 2nd was born. It would save lives and lots of trauma.

metalmutha · 17/08/2021 00:26

@owlinatree I am so sorry for your loss .

LemonPepperOrder · 17/08/2021 00:29

I completely agree with you. Why isnt this routinely being done actually it makes perfect sense! Please post a link when you do the petition, i will post it as far and wide as i can get it x

Fupoffyagrasshole · 17/08/2021 00:32

Yeah my baby was transverse and I never got past 2 centimetres, 30 hours in labour - finally emergency c section ! Was very scary in the end - baby had gotten stressed - there was missed merconium in the waters etc

A quick scan would have confirmed baby was in awkward position and would
Never come out naturally - c section could have been done hours earlier before it got to emergency status

Original poster
Justanideamaybe · 17/08/2021 00:47

I think it is something that must be challenged and looked into. I was a teenage mum the first time I gave birth , my daughter arrived in a couple of hours and did no damage. I’d been in denial and had not looked at a single birth book or studied anything. She just slid out , because she was small , happened to be in the right position and probably more because I was bloody lucky . My second birth was potentially a tragedy because he was breech , fat, traverse and wearing the cord like a scarf. There was no way to know the difference apart from me telling the midwife it didn’t feel right and I knew something was up, she ignored me, again and again , she didn’t believe me. Only when it was nearly too late did she act. 20 seconds, sonogram , baby seen , baby large , baby breech , cord twisted… I’ve got a healthy child. I’m still bloody haunted by the experience though. Every woman should be given the best chance of taking a healthy baby home. I want everyone to get an ultrasound in labour . It’s ridiculous to not do this.

OP posts:
IsleofDen · 17/08/2021 01:01

This is definitely possible, they do have mobile ultrasound trolleys, they used one during my twin labour to see the position of twin 2.

MimiDaisy11 · 17/08/2021 01:08

I agree. I also think many women go through induction needlessly when some examinations and scans would reveal it will likely be pointless and a caesarean is best.

BirthThoughts · 17/08/2021 01:23

This is a really interesting question. I think there should definitely be more research into routine use of ultrasound in labour. I think one thing that any such research would need to be conscious of is whether routine use like this potentially increased rates of intervention. For example I had a big first baby with no interventions, but I know a lot of friends who happened to have growth scans (which I was never sent for for whatever reason) who were steered towards induction which ended in C-section. There's something called "iatrogenic harm" which describes the unintended consequences of any medical intervention, even one which seems innocuous (like an ultrasound scan). So it strikes me that one potential argument against routine scanning is that it might see some women pressured down a more medicalised pathway (with more difficult recoveries etc) than they need to be on.

I'm not saying this is necessarily the case but I'm not sure it's totally clear-cut without research to be sure that it a) genuinely does improve neonatal outcomes (it's a bit shocking how many routine aspects of maternity care in developed countries actually don't improve outcomes - a big baby example is continuous monitoring, which sounds very reassuring but is no better than intermittent monitoring and increases likelihood of C-section) and b) doesn't have unintended consequences which also affect mothers and babies negatively.

I hope that makes sense and doesn't come across insensitively. Flowers

Original poster
Justanideamaybe · 17/08/2021 01:58

@BirthThoughts
I see what you’re saying. No one is advocating medical intervention unnecessarily. And a c section isn’t a walk in the park recovery wise. But if there’s a risk , an identifiable risk then it should be seen. It should be acted upon. I’d rather see 50 unnecessary sections than one very disabled or dead baby . I’d rather see 50 sections than a woman with horrible birth injuries because the panic of getting her child out alive meant that her body became collateral damage. I’m all for nature doing it’s thing, it worked very well for me once . I’d like to give women a choice though, let them decide what they wanted to do with the privilege of knowing what the risks were. I know that if they’d scanned me, I’d have had a planned section costing a few hundred quid more or so than a vaginal and so much less trauma . As it went they had 14 people in the room at 2am. And I’d been so convinced I was going to die ,and my baby was going to die and I’d lost all faith in the midwives I fled the hospital the next day . 17 hours after a section. Forget breastfeeding I’m too tired, too swollen , too traumatised . Just get me home . Is that good care? It’s not. I’d rather that scan, I’d rather the lovely calm sections I’ve heard all about .

OP posts:
Everydayimhuffling · 17/08/2021 02:01

As @lagomtransplant says, it's been clearly identified that it should be routinely done. If British governments would stop seeing the NHS as a source for money for their mates and something to be dismantled and destroyed it might actually happen.

endofthelinefinally · 17/08/2021 02:09

I think we need to make full use of technology and I am very surprised this still isn't happening routinely.
Back in the 70s we did scans on labour ward using portable scanning machines for exactly this purpose.
I think poor training and staff shortages are the cause of so many sad outcomes.

teezletangler · 17/08/2021 02:24

It's a routine part of care in the rest of Europe and the absence of it in the UK has been frequently highlighted by European experts as one of the leading causes of porer obstetric outcomes in the UK.

Really? I'd like to see the source for this. I work as a midwife in Canada (granted not Europe but another western country) and it certainly isn't a part of routine labour care here. We occasionally do scans in labour to assess position. I have never heard of this being routine in the US either.