emergency caesarean under general anaesthetic

[dexter]

I had an emergency birth which due to baby's distress had to be extremely fast, so they put me under. (This was after a 50 hour labour). My husband couldn't be there, because of it being under general, and my first memory is of seeing my son being held by someone in theatre, all wrapped up and dressed, while I shook violently on the recovery bed - couldn't stop shaking so obviously couldn't hold him. Can't even remember how many hours elapsed before I held him.

He is three now and I regret more and more that neither me or my husband was there!! Was so knocked out and exhausted by labour and surgery that couldn't fight to breastfeed (my son never sucked when put on boob - just lay there!) so I gave up and did bottles.

When I look back it seems like this experience belongs to someone else - like really I had a normal labour and breastfed but somehow can't remember it. Think it's because I'm really no nonsense and never (touch wood) have health problems, girly problems, all been so normal - and then this!!

And I NEVER meet others who had caesarean under general - get quite jealous when people say they had an emergency C section, then hear that they had it under epidural with husband present - I know this is not ideal, but such a different experience to mine. Anyone else had similar to me???

Dexter, this thread is great - ahhh, all my (blocked) memories are coming back to me now ...

During my (induced) labour, I think the midwife was secretly incredulous that I opted to delay pain relief as long as possible hoping for an active birth. Like you, nothing positive about how I was doing, whilst she turned the thumbscrews (syntocinon drip to increase intensity of contractions and hasten labour). Because of my naivete, I never asked for an epi. I am amazed that you toughed out a 50 hour (!!) labour without an epi. Mine was only bad for about 4 hours and, believe me, I was ready for the GA (or any pain relief) by then.

Yes, there was an ominous pressure on my throat whilst going down. But didn't have the fat lip.

Midwives who came to see me after (including the one who assured me to agree to an induction - lies!) were not keen to discuss the labour or what happened beyond anodine reassurances. One of them saw me obviously upset and in tears the morning after about having to share the ward with 4 other women with normal births and babies (mine was in NICU) and promised to get me a single ward - nothing. I had to get dh to beat down doors for that. Was scolded by the night nurse of my 4-bed ward for ringing the buzzer twice at 4 am to try to get pain relief - oh comforting morphine. Still regret apologising to her in earshot of other mums in the room ...

Oh, blueshoes, your midwives sound DREADFUL! As you say, it all starts to come back...I remember being put on the ward after recovery room, and the next morning a midwife came and told me it was time I sat up, helped me on to a chair - then within the hour another had come along and quite sharply told me I shouldn't be sitting up!!!grrr.

You have my TOTAL respect for having an induction and trying to delay pain relief, you are a BRAVE WOMAN!!! And don't get the wrong idea about me - I went into labour on the monday and by Wednesday am I was BEGGING for an epidural! They did get me one on the wednesday afternoon and he was born at about 9pm.

I really wanted active labour too, and spent most of it walking around as I found this helped, but I know it added to the exhaustion. I found it really difficult like you on the ward - mine was women who had all had sections and ALL of them were up and about within hours. I wish someone had had the time to talk to me and say 'you've had a different experience to these women' because it's so difficult to see people coping when you're not!!!

Its really informative to read your personal experiences & I think all MWs should be made to read them. It seems a recurring theme (both on here & what I've heard in RL) that especially on the postnatal wards the MWs are scarce. Unfortunately, with financial constraints, staff shortages are commonplace. However, a little kind explanation goes a long way, in my view. I always explain & appologise to my patients if they've been kept waiting as thats how I'd like to be treated. What makes it worse is if you can hear the MWs chatting at the nurse's station whilst you're in need of help. I totally sympathise with you.

Yes, cricoid pressure is where we press on the front of your throat to prevent stomach contents coming up as you go off to sleep, until the breathing tube is secured. The anaesthetist always endeavours to place the tube without damaging either lips or teeth but occasionally the equipment causes a bruised lip. I'm sure your gas man was doing it as quickly as he possibly could! Incidently, were you not seen by an anaesthetist the following day? As for waking up in pain, it would be interesting to find out what pain relief you were given in theatre. If you have an epidural in situ then this is topped up & gives a few hours of numbness afterwards. For a GA alone, you would be given possibly morphine before you woke up. In either case, a Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) would most likely be given to you afterwards. This is a machine containing the pain relief where YOU press a button to self-administer it. Did you have anything like this? Of course, different anaesthetists have different ways of tackling post op pain but regardless of this, it sounds like your pain needs were simply not met. Some hospitals have a more pro-active approach to analgesia & sadly some don't. Mind you, a sympathetic MW might have helped!

One more thing, (sorry for the mammoth post!) a friend of mine suffered post traumatic stress after the birth of her DS. She was whisked into theatre post delivery as her uterus prolapsed which is a serious life-threatening event (v v rare!) The anaesthetist & surgeon didn't even have time to change & did it in civvies. She remembers saying before she went to sleep, "I'm going to die, aren't I?" She didn't, of course, & made a full recovery. Believe it or not, she was told by her boss not to take extra time off afterwards "to set a good example". WTF?? It might surprise you to learn that my friend is also an anaesthetic nurse!

, if you think you have unresolved issues, no matter how seemingly trivial, it might be worth it to speak to someone to get some kind of closure. Have a think about it. {{{{big hugs}}}}

Hi dexter - I've had 3 c-sections, 2 under GA and one under an epidural. Yes, it is a lot more traumatic with a GA, but in the end all that counts is that you and the baby are fine.

Yes, with the GA, psychologically, I felt like I had been in a car crash - in fact, I think I suffered with post-traumatic stress syndrome from it. But physically, everthing healed very fast.

With my last c-section under GA, last Friday! I was discharged fit and well with my twins two and a half days after the section.

I was given the choice but strongly advised to choose the epidural. I chose the GA, and think I made a mistake.

Agree with the poor post natal care from MWs after a section. Given that you really can't move for all the drips/lines/caethers/drains in, they are very reluctant to help you with you baby. I found they were very quick to take babies and give formula rather than help c-section mums with BF, as that would have been more time consuming for them.

Hi Karma - I found the PCA - morphine pump good for pain relief, but a real pain when trying to change clothes/wash/ hold baby/mobilise/ or do anything but lie in bed. And mine kept coming out and had to be redone -owch! I would have much rather an injection for pain every few hours if needed.

Hi dexter.

I also had emergency section ds1 was 4 on tuesday.

Must say though he was born at 14.22 and dh was just outside the theatre, when ds1 was born he was taken to daddy which was sooo nice for him. Ds1 was then taken very quickly to scbu and it was 7 hours before I got to see him and I too was breastfeeding mum.

When I had the twins ( 21 months now) they were born by emergency section but this time I was kept awake. I never seen them neither did dh and he was with me and they were rushed to intensive care (born 11 weeks prem) it was 14 hours before I was taken to see them.

dexter - sorry, haven't read all this thread but just wanted to let you know that I had that birth too. In fact mine was very similar to Olive's. Dh was sent outside and thought we were both dying (he could hear a bleeping machine which kept stopping and he thought it was my heart monitor!).
When I woke up ds was in special care with dh so I didn't see him till they took me back to the ward (ds was fine, by the way).
Felt really upset about it for ages. Although I did manage to breastfeed (eventually) I had problems with bonding with him for a long time. I used to have dreams that my mum(?) had givem birth to him and she then gave him to me to look after. I found it really hard to acknowedge that he was my baby.
I had dd as a vbac when ds was 2. It was only then that I was able to put all my negative feelings behind me. You will get over it (and I totally understand your feelings) but it does take time.

Hi goldenoldie. How are you? Sorry you felt you made a mistake abut the GA, why was that? You're spot on about MWs not spending enough time helping you to feed baby. About the PCA, lots of women don't need it the following day anyway which I think has more to do with being distracted by their baby. I was told that the post-op pain from a section is equivalent to having a hernia repair, (eg not a huge amount) whereas I thought it would be as bad as having a hysterectomy. Not so, apparantly. On a lighter note, we always find that the patients who get up & around really quickly after an op are the smokers!! No need to ask them to get out of bed, they're already outside onto their 5th fag!

Thanks everybody for your experiences, specially Karmamother for your detail! I guess what is standing out to me from all this really is that my experience was so bad because I had been having contractions for 50 hours solid prior to the surgery - and they had been regular from the beginning - no slow start for me! I had a really obvious contraction and from then on they were no more than 3 - 10 minutes apart (with the VERY occasional blip of 20 mins or so) and I remember sooo much time just breathing desperately in and out of my gas and air thingy, it was sooo painful. I think it was all this that made me utterly exhausted prior to the op - and my mum saw me about 5 hours before he was born and has since said "it was going to happen anyway - you were so exhausted you could not have pushed a baby out!"

Thanks so much everyone, I have for the first time understood that my birth was a real real emergency and I shall quite proudly say that I had a crash section - at least I feel it differentiates my experience from other more planned c sections. This feels important because it was such a major event in my life and I have to accept that. Thanks MNetters you are all great. x

It's a pleasure, dexter. Glad to help.

I had an em cs under ga after failed forceps and failed ventuse. Baby was in distress and there was no time to top up the epidural. I did feel as if I was in an episode of ER with all the drs and mws running around with worried faces. Dh was not allowed in (nobody told him this until after dh was deliverd so he spent an hour fearing the worst as he hadn't been called in).

I do feel disappointed that I didn't have a ntaural birth or even a 'natural cs' but if the em cs hadn't happened baby wouldn't be here as there were literally minutes to spare.

The next time I will def have an elective cs as wouldn't want to go through the whole trauma and scare again.

The girl in the next bed to me on the ward had an emergency CS under GA, as when she was examined she was 9.5 cm dilated undiagnosed breech! She kept having urges to push, so they decided it was too risky to wait for the epidural to kick in to do the CS, so she had it under GA. She was told that if she had been 1/2 hour later getting to hospital, both her and her baby could have died.