Retained placenta - why does it happen?

[carynh]

I had a retained placenta with my first baby. She was born at home, as planned, but we had to be transferred to hospital after she was born as I was haemorrhaging & the placenta wouldn't deliver.
Has anyone else had this experience? If it happened before does it mean subsequent births will be the same?

Yes! me! Sounds exactly like what happened with me. I have no idea why but this has been eating away at me. I had a natural drug free birth in an MLU in a hope that it would be over quickly as I watched that documentary 'the business of being born' and was worried about the effect of drugs on DD as well as interferring with labour progression. DD was born in under 10 hours from first contraction/water breaking to her coming out, but the whole process including placenta took another 5 hours. She was big (10.4lbs) so this lead me to believe it may have had something to do with it? I was not given much informations sbout it at the time. I was given 3 syntocinon jabs, the MW tugged the chord and it snapped. Had about 5 or so different people trying to manually remove it- without any pain relief it was agony. Finally transferred onto ward- went into theatre. immobile epi, and was strongly advised to get a blood transfusion but DH got freaked out by this so I made the decision to dose up on iron tablets- although my recovery was a lot slower and took a huge toll hair falling out. I would also be really interested in any information on the subject as DD is now 2 and we have always wanted more than one child- I am just not sure I would put myself through that again. There is a website I was given recently that might be of help to you...this page

sorry i meant this page

I had a retained placenta. They were going to take me to theatre to have it removed, but it eventually came out on its own after several synocotyn injections and a manual removal was mentioned. Was high from g&a so don't remember too much.
The main reason mine was retained, was because the umbilical cord was only 15cm long in the first place.
I didn't have any problems with dd2's birth though.

My experience was pretty much the same as Longdistance. Didn't happen with any of the subsequent deliveries.

I had my first retained placenta after a 10 hour labour with 9lb 3oz baby in birth centre, then transferred to main hospital with a huge bleed and manual removal with spinal block.
Next delivery was only 3 1/2hrs with smaller baby but had another retained placenta, with manual removal with spinal block. No real explanation as to why I had either.
I am pregnant again and have talked to midwife about a natural third stage this time. I have read a lot of research which seems to show less cases of retained placenta if your body is left to just do its thing.