Would you mind sharing your shoulder dystocia stories with me?

[Crossfire]

Dear all, if anyone can face sharing their experience of shoulder dystocia I would be really greatful. I'm a first year student midwife and at the moment I'm learning and 'helping' deliver babies. Just a few days ago I I was with a woman who was ready to give birth to her second child, everything was going really well, she was on the entenox and it was all lovely. When you are a junior student you are absolutely guided by your mentor and his/her hands cover yours while delivering the baby. So I was guiding out the baby's head and all was well. We waited for the moment that the baby turns its body and my mentor had said very quietly in my ear 'big baby'. Baby turned and we were waiting for the next contracting for mum to push baby out...at this point there was no movement, I immediately stepped back as I got a funny feeling and it wasn't my place to continue. My mentor slammed the emergency button, shouted shoulder dystocia and seriously about 5 seconds later the room was full of people who immediately went into action ( the only job I could do now was start keepin times and write down who was doing what) I watched while thinking jeeezz and a midwife was pushing down on the pubic bone and my mentor had her hands around the babies shoulders and turned him slightly so the shoulder was released, ( two other midwives practically had mums knees on her nose as well). From after the babies head was delivered to the time baby was out was less than 90 seconds....I was stunned. Baby was all well and had a slight bruise under one arm.

The purpose of the post is not to tell a horror story but to find out if anyone can remember what happened and if they felt they received good care ( as Im wondering if anything could have been done differently). Mum herself said she didn't really know what was going on as she was still on her entenox but felt like she wa going to fall off the back of the bed at one point.

My mentor explained that it's very rare for a shoulder dystocia ( her first in 8 years). I have been thinking about mum and if this is going to traumatise her and also poor dad who was up at her head watching.

After baby and mum were all sorted out they were both drinking tea and eating mountains of toast and chatting away while cooing over their baby....I wanted to slide down the wall in a heap! ( the baby wasn't even that big and I was thinking about how the hell did I get out my own nearly 11 pounder without getting stuck)...... And I was amazed how the midwives all got on with everything in a calm sunny way afterwards...

Our midwife was lovely but she said that if the McRoberts technique hadn't worked and I'd needed an emergency c-section then there 'probably wouldn't have been time.' I wish I didn't know this as I'm fucking petrified of having another baby now.

It happened to me with DS 2 - also a home birth. I had two midwives as I had a pool and as he was about to arrive I got out and was on all fours thinking to myself it was all nearly over when all of a sudden I had the most excrutiating pain and as I reached for the entonox they told me not to bother and then I felt as if I was in the middle of a very undignified tug of war with them pulling, me wondering what on earth was going on and then very suddenly it was all over and DS2 was there looking totally confused and forlorn - I think they were holding him in an upright position so my recollection is of him sitting there with a "WTF" expression on his face while I wondered what had gone wrong. We were both fine, I didn't need stitches and the midwives then explained it had been shoulder dystocia - I have no idea what manouevre they used - just felt as if they shoved their hands up and pulled him out! I got the impresion they were quite confident with the situation and if I'd wanted another I would certainly have had a home birth again.

Have checked notes.....

Supra pubic pressure
Rubin's
Woods corkscrew manouvre

.....if that means anything to anyone? I'd quite like to know what the manouvres are actually, but I'm not going to google it as I'm sure there are lots of scary stories.

The thing was, Shagmund, I didn't feel like it was a traumatic delivery. It seemed pretty straightforward compared to my first birth. At no point did I feel frightened or like I might lose my baby, so I found their concern a little odd.

Mine was pretty much as in the OP. Seemed only seconds til they got her out luckily.

I researched SD as was told at risk of big baby.

As a result, the first sentence of my birth plan stated 'Do not assume consent to McRoberts!'

i'd rather they tried Gaskin or racing start first to be sure - though sooner than 5 mins...

is that what you'd have asked?

I actually got to talk to the senior midwife about it, who incidentally made sure she or another senior mw woukd be attending me. Nothing like a statement such as that to ensure you get someone experienced on the day

Anyway, it was agreed that the first thing to try would be hands off, calm, quiet explanation with encouragement first to move around and try and figure out what my body was telling me, followed by some suggestions from the Mws.

It is an emergency, but equally there is no need for screaming and panic, or manhandling.

I had SD with DS1 7lbs 12. Had had 36 hours of labour with prolonged 2nd stage so was quite out of it and thought that the 15 people and consultant that came into the room at that point was quite normal . They did McRoberts and ventouse, was all quite calm. I had a 3rd degree tear. DS was very blue/grey but cried quite quickly. Nobody spoke to me about it at the time at all and I didn't find out until I was pregnant with DS2 5 years later.