Gel nails on own nails (not fake nails) allowed for planned c section

[Mummy2025x]

Hi are you able to wear gel nail polish on your own nails during a planned c section? Scotland

You can't wear nail polish at all. They need to be able to see your unadorned nailbeds.

I wasn’t allowed any nail polish or piercings in.

No. Natural nails only. The anaesthetist needs to be able to monitor the colour of your nailbeds.

Not usually because they monitor your nail bed during the operation.

Recently had surgery & another patient in the same room had to have her gels removed. One of the reasons is it can affect the O2 monitor.

No varnish at all.

Ok thanks I’ll need to go and get them taken off!

I had mine on and no issue, so did my friend (as I asked her before mine) I thought not having them on was out dated advice but it looks like i should have removed from other comments. They didn't say anything to me!

It’ll be fine. Doi: anaesthetist.

what happens in an emergency C section then? just curious!

I’ve had 3 and had gel on my toes each time. No one said anything…

It's fine. There are other ways of monitoring oxygen levels.

I think my hospital has pretty much given up on trying to get people to remove nail polish/false nails prior to surgery. Modern sats probes can still get a decent reading in most cases (ours struggle with very dark or blue/purple colours) and can usually be turned sideways on a finger, or a small ear probe used instead. I've never cancelled someone because of nails. Another anaesthetist.

They said to me as long as either nails or toes were clear that was ok. I had clear finger nails though as figured that was better. But they said they liked my bright pink toes 🤣

I had my nail varnish wiped off, but that was over 13 years ago. No idea what would happen with fake nails. I know from medic friends that it's now a lot techier, and there's an oxygen monitor monitoring for blood oxygen levels/ cyanosis, rather than relying on visual observation, so things may have changed.

I didn’t have them on during my second c section, but I went under a last minute general when I had a late miscarriage and I wasn’t asked to remove them. Also when I had my first dc prematurely they didn’t ask me to remove it before the c section.

Is it not a standard thing then? It was only two months ago I listened to an anaesthetist say they needed the gel removing (it was gallbladder removal surgery, if that makes a difference?)

Definitely not girl, nothing on your nails at all

Also, congratulations xx

For an emergency, there are varying degrees of "now!".

Emergency sections can take place in a matter of minutes, and they sure as hell won't be pausing to soak off gels (my friend had all her jewellery, piercings and gels on).

Emergency as in, "ok, this baby's got to come out soon as they can't come out vaginally but aren't in excess distress" they might have time to remove nail varnish etc.

Either it’s removed or they are in a situation where the data that they need to keep the mother and the baby alive isn’t as readily available as it would have been.

You can’t always have a perfect situation for every single operation that is performed.

Well, I certainly had to remove my nail polish before I had my tonsils out. Mind you, that was years ago so things may have changed. I remember feeling quite cross as I had only just painted them!

I had no nail polish on recently for an op on my fingers but did on my toes
woke up with nail polish missing off both my middle toes!

@Caerulea It seems like a bit of a relic from times of old. Dark/metallic nails can interfere slightly with the reading an sats probe will give but In the majority of cases it doesn’t make a clinically significant difference though. The tech in the probes does seem to be better at dealing with coloured nails than it was when they were first developed. The probe can be turned to read side-side rather than front-back, or there are sats probes that can for on the ear lobe so if you’re really worried about dark nails there are options. Very long nails can be a problem for finger probes just because they never really fit that well with huge talons!

Sats are just one of many parameters that are monitored (and they’re the monitors that are most likely stop giving useful information when someone is really sick) - anaesthetists are used to putting information from multiple sources together and not depending on one monitor. The trend in the probe readings (the number and the waveform) are often more useful than a single number.

I can count on zero fingers the number of times in the last 20yrs that being able to see someone’s nail bed made a difference to any sort of decision making (and during a lap chole, as well as a lot of other operations, a patients hands are normally by their side and wrapped up under the drapes so no one can get anywhere near them). In a low resource setting where there isn’t all the rest of the whizzy tech & monitoring it may be useful to see someone’s nail beds as a guesstimate of how sick someone might be but it doesn’t tell you anything terribly specific and there’s usually other signs that will help too.

in an emergency there isn’t usually the option of doing anything about nails - we just use our common sense and if it doesn’t cause massive issues in an emergency then it shouldn’t really in an elective scenario either. Haven’t seen acetone for normal nail varnish in theatres where I work for ages but I’m sure there’s probably a (decades old) bottle somewhere.

obviously if the surgery is something hand/finger/foot/toe related then there may be good surgical reasons for ditching the nails.

the main reaction HCPs have to nice nails is jealousy because we’re not allowed them!