What causes a placenta to be like this and would you be offended?

[LostMarbles99]

My baby is 9 months now but this keeps coming up before me and I worried that it was something I did.

When I had my ds by csection the midwives told me that they hadn't seen as unhealthy a placenta for a long time and were keeping it to show other people, students I think.

I think she said it was extremely calcified.

I keep thinking that this must be my fault. What did I do wrong? I tried extremly hard to be healthy etc during my pregnancy but my baby was v small, 5lbs.

Is an unhealthy placenta the fault of the mother? Need to let this go!

I would imagine it had nothing to do with you and just with how it developed. Be happy for your baby and do not worry about something you cannot influence or change.

www.thelaboroflove.com/articles/what-is-placenta-calcification - does this help?

www.parenthood360.com/index.php/pregnancy-calcification-of-the-placenta-4665/ - another useful link

That's really interesting.

I'm hoping they kept my placenta and umbilical cord, as the cord for dd1 was only 15cm long. So extremely rare.

I doubt the calcification was your fault, as was the short umbilical cord for my dd.

Have an unMnetty {{{hug}}} from me.

I think its just the luck of the draw - I had low fluid and OB said after section it was to do with aging placenta (although I was only 39 weeks). She said everyone's starts aging after 40/41 weeks but for unknown reasons some age earlier.

Um - I think they have to ask your permission to do that. If that ever happens again sure it won't tell her to bog off

I know how you feel, my DS was born with low blood sugars and a relatively low birth weight vis a vis his height and I spent ages googling to see why. However, as he packed in the weight soon after, I kind if forgot about it. However, if it had still troubled me, I would have asked for an appointment to,go,through my notes and discuss. You coukd contact the hospital if you wanted to,do that

Hopefully they might give that midwife some empathy training and explain to her that if she's going to point out something over the ordinary, she should explain why it happened and give some reassurance

Was your baby very overdue? I know that can sometimes cause calcification.

Often it can be things like high bp, poor blood flow through the cord or just a placenta which is starting to age /fail which causes it to be like this. So not the fault of the woman.

No it's not your fault. I had this but this was identified too late. It is a sign of an aging placenta & demonstrates that that particular placenta was on its last legs when you baby was born. Mine happened because of a clotting issue - nothing I could have done to fix it as I was doing everything by the book (no smoking, drinking, taking vits etc).

DD's placenta was calcified because of oligohydramnios (low amniotic fluid).

They picked it up on a later scan and DD was induced a few days before EDD (she actually arrived on the due date).