Emergency c section delayed due to electives?

[JenS16]

I was admitted yesterday for an emergency (category 3) c section and they can’t fit me in today as the list is full of electives! Hopefully tomorrow but they can’t say for sure.

I am fully in support of women having a choice when it’s comes to childbirth but AIBU to think that emergencies should be prioritised over electives as there is a risk to the baby of waiting??

(I know I don’t know the situ of the women but waiting for electives but as they are not classed as emergent I would assume there is lower risk or they’d be re-classified…)

Mine was an emergency, I was in labour, stupid midwife thought I wasn’t pushing hard enough, decided to get a doctor to see me and my baby was transverse, it was awful, my baby nearly died, I was instantly rushed through to theatre with a doctors hand pushing my baby back up into me….won’t go into the gory details, after a blood transfusion and a night in HDU we were both ok thankfully!

Not sure why it's such a struggle for you to understand that people have different references, different reasons for fear and concern, different takes on situations. When a doctor tells you something must be done within 12 hours and it's not, that is a reason that some people will feel concern / worry / fear - even panic.

It's great that your midwife classes it differently to her doctors, who have told her something different. Does that mean your midwife is right and her doctors are wrong?

It's ok for people to have a view that's different from yours, it's not nice to try to make them feel foolish with a haughty 'I don't understand why you are struggling with this' attitude.

I’m just very anxious about it all, and after being told that baby is compromised and needs to come out within 12-24 hours and too risky for an induction, I can’t understand the wait…

@JenS16 It is very scary when you are told that your baby is compromised and needs to come out within 12-24 hours, then find yourself waiting and not knowing when.

YANBU at all to feel anxious. Ignore any pp that tries to trivialise what you are going through.

Mumsnet is supposed to be a forum of parents supporting each other. And I think you deserve a little support here.

I hope you have your little baby now and are getting the support that you need. 💐

Mine was recorded as an elective because it was planned. If I'd gone into labour, it would have been an emergency due to breech baby in a crappy position. As it was, I was showing signs of early labour by the time I went into theatre, having been bumped twice for emergencies from the labour ward, so another bump would have probably meant being recategorised.

Differentiating between planned - elective - emergency - crash is a relatively new thing and many consultants will still use the binary terminology of elective vs. emergency because it's what they used for the first twenty years of their careers, when both mothers and hospitals weren't demanding quite so much precision about the reasons for them beyond 'consultant says section'.

There is no actual timescale for a cat 3 CS- not by national guidance anyway. Their local guidance may have timescales included. Tbf the timescales are for audit purposes really.

It is rubbish for you though. The expectation would be that a cat 3 occurs within 24 hours in most trusts; it's reasonable to delay until it is safe to do so, so some trusts will wait for daytime hours when there are more staff around. I would imagine they are performing regular CTGs and asking you to inform them of any concerns and keep an eye on baby's movements. I think it's absolutely reasonable of you to ask about the delay. The labour ward coordinator will have more oversight of the happenings on the labour ward so might be worth asking to speak to them.