Basically I’m pretty worried I could die during the birth of my second child, and I was wondering whether anyone has had a similar experience to me.
Immediately upon delivering DD1 a few years back I had a really rapid haemorrhage. I lost a little over 1 litre in less than a minute due (I guess) to retained placenta, but fortunately my epidural was very effective and so they were able to immediately get up in there and remove the remaining placenta manually and the bleeding then stopped.
So now on my notes it mentions that I had a pph of 1L, which I understand by itself isn’t mega uncommon or a catastrophic event, but my concern is the speed at which it happened. From what I can see, for most people who haemorrhage this amount or more it happens a bit more slowly, even over a period of hours, but if I haemorrhage again at the same rate as last time and I’m not at hospital or quick action isn’t taken I’ll be dead within 10 minutes. I kind of feel that now I’m pregnant with DD2 the doctors are looking at my notes and just seeing 1L and thinking “that’s not too bad” without really taking into account how quickly it happened. I’m just feeling really uninformed and out of control and I don’t really know what I should do for my birth plan or what measures should be taken. DD1 and I ended up in hospital for a week due to the pph and also due to being placed on the sepsis pathway.
One of my concerns is that I’ve made the wrong choice of hospital. I’m less than 5mins from the local hospital, but it’s a pretty bad hospital. My mum nearly died there 30 years ago from a haemorrhage after a miscarriage due to lack of care of their part (which they admitted), I’ve personally had terrible experiences there with miscarriages, and I know other people have too. So, I had an induction with DD1 at another hospital, which is a very good hospital, and specialised in maternity… but it’s up to an hour’s drive away if the traffic is bad. There’s no history of very fast labours in my family but I guess I’m worried if I start to bleed out on the motorway on the way to hospital I won’t make it. So I don’t know whether I should switch to the local hospital, or opt for an induction again so it’s more controlled, or a c-section, or just wait for labour and risk the hour’s drive (which my consultant said would be fine but, again, I’m not positive she’s really considering the speed of the pph last time).
There’s another thing that’s really shaken me. A girl I’ve known for 20 years had complications with her first birth a few years ago and stayed in hospital for a week, same as me. She was recently pregnant with her second. She was at term and something went terribly wrong and she and her baby died. There is a 2-week inquest set for later this year (which is very long for an inquest). I expect there will be media coverage at the time and probably CQC recommendations. I keep thinking there must at the very least have been failures in her care, and she probably trusted her doctors who ultimately let her down. I’ve been trusting my doctors too, but I’m wondering if I should do more and push for another review of my history and a more rigorous protocol.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’m going to die. I can’t imagine just being ok and going home with my new baby and DD1 and DH. My family are excited and keep talking about the future and I’m like haha yeah but I’m just faking it because really I don’t think I’ll be there. I hope the inquest findings bring changes which make this kind of unthinkable event less likely to happen to other women, but it’ll be too late for me because I’m due before the inquest. I know anxiety and trauma can make you feel these kinds of things, and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but I can’t shake the feelings and it’s quite distressing.
Apologies for the long post!!