Can baby stay with mum during stitching?

[Kiteflying27]

Hello,

I'm just getting a bit nervous about my second birth. After the first I had to go to theatre to repair a third degree tear and my son was left with his dad on the ward. I struggled to establish breastfeeding and am really keen to encourage breast crawl this time so don't want to separated from my child. If I need to go to surgery again is there any reason why my baby can't stay with me? A nurse at the hospital for my first child said something about infection, but surely the baby would be in surgery if born by c-section or assisted birth anyway.

Any experience of this would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

An ordinary tear sutured in the delivery room won't separate you and baby. A 3rd degree tear or something equally complex will. THe team need to concentrate on you- you'l be legs up, possible spinal anaesthetic etc . You can't I'm afraid be wriggling to look at your baby or the baby needing looking after in the room.
THe time in theatre will depend on the complexity, but it really wont be long ( 30mins or so) that you are separated. You can do skin to skin before hand anyway.
Assisted birth/section babies are usually shown to mum/hugged by mum then taken to dad. There is also a paed/nurse to look after the baby in theatre

With a c section a baby can be placed on your chest. Ask for it before hand so they can set you up for this. Maybe have a talk to your midwife before hand so you can explore your options before hand. I know people think birth plans are a bit so so but in your case exploring the options available to you before hand and making choices about them might be helpful it also means your partner will be able to advocate for you and step in when it's needed for example if you do need to be separated get the baby's dad to do skin to skin contact which can be beneficial for establishing breastfeeding.

What Theas18 said. I had an episiotomy first time and the stitches were done in the delivery room. Baby was with me the whole time. Second time I had a 3rd degree tear like you and had to go to theatre without baby. I had spinal block but I don't think I would be in the right state to hold the baby. Re. breast crawl/establish feeding it was done before I went in for stitches (partially because the theatre was busy until some hours after my birth!). I had lots of skin to skin but baby was also sleepy, so I hand expressed a load of colostrum (with the help of my doula) and stored it in syringes so that when I was away baby could be fed as well. Baby was wheeled back to me in the recovery area, and then to postnatal ward.

You might want to consider hand express colostrum in syringes if you're keen to bf and have to be separated for any reason.

Thank you very much for the replies, really helps to understand it a bit better. This might be a stupid question, but can you still have a natural/physiological third stage if you've torn badly?

I had a third degree tear and was sewn up in the delivery room. I already had an epidural in, the consultant topped it up and repair was sorted. Ds was with me all the time, but DH was ushered out of the room and used the time to make phone calls.
I had a natural third stage as well but obviously this was just my experience.

you really need to talk to your mw and hospital team about your birth because each situaton is different in different hospitals...

finding out policy and procedure for your hospital will help you to establish whats going to be best for your needs...

I don't know if my story is going to help you or not.

With my DC1 I had a tear that the obstetrician tried to sew up in the delivery room, and as I was sucking on gas and air for that I wasn't able to hold my baby during it, DH did skin-to-skin whilst this was going on. I had previously done a little bit of skin-to-skin time though before the stitching began.

I then had to be wheeled into theatre and given an epidural for further stitching and obviously the baby didn't come with me for that, I had to roll onto my side for the epidural and then in stirrups for the stitching, DC1 stayed with DH.

When I got out of theatre, DC1 and I had a snooze, and it wasn't until a few hours later that we attempted breastfeeding. We didn't get it established on the first day at all, but the midwives were patient and helped us to top-up with formula sipped from a small cup, and in day two we clicked.

So I suppose in my experience the time in theatre wasn't in itself really an issue wrt breastfeeding, it was as if DC and I needed a bit of a breather on that first day before tackling the next thing. Like I said, I'm not sure if that helps you to understand what happened for you.

(With DC2 I only needed a few small stitches from the midwife in the delivery room, so my fears of a repetition were unfounded.)

Thanks so much for the replies and great to hear that your fears of a repeat were unfounded NormHonal, very reassuring that its not definitely going to happen again, fingers crossed!