Is it bad for baby's heartrate to drop to 80bpm?

[Lonz]

I've always found it hard to come to terms with my son's birth mainly because they didn't tell me what was happening or why they intervened.

After a birth debrief I found out the reason for them rushing my labour. Towards the end of the 2nd stage, my son's heart rate dropped to 80 bpm for maybe over 5 minutes (not wholly sure) with a bit of a recovery but went straight back down again, it didn't recover. Is this bad? Would there have been severe consequences if they hadn't intervened?

I know the heart rate is meant to be in between 110 and 160 I think, but is it really that bad for a babies heart rate to be lower or higher than this for longer than normal? Is it reason enough for intervention or could I have been left to birth him properly?
It was the first decel during labour and it happened as I was getting ready to push him out. My mum said there was a lot of blood and he just kept going back in everytime I pushed, which I assume is normal for baby to linger before actually being born (need to stretch etc). I would never have gotten him out when they were telling me to push anyway, then ended in rushed episiotomy which I've hated ever since as I wasn't told a reason for it.

My son was born limp, blue, bruised and unresponsive. They put some air on him as my mum says and rushed the cord cutting and placenta. When they gave him to me they said he was shocked from the quick delivery (established labour lasted 3hrs 30mins), so I didn't think anything drastic had happened so couldn't understand what their problem was. I've never known why they took the last bit of my labour away from me until I had a debrief which I think is wrong.

If I didn't feel like they attacked me then I don't think I would have at all had a problem with his birth which is pretty shitty to be honest. One bit of information is all I needed. Because of it, it's led me to question everything else about his birth, it's frustrating.

I don't know, if anyone can give some insight, a midwife, it'd be appreciated, thank you.

I think it's time you spoke to a counsellor to look towards the future. The medical professionals there that day are not going to be able to give you what you need - they saved your baby's life.

You appear very much focused on the "birth experience" rather than "thank the fucking lord I've got a live, healthy baby".

Like PP, my primary goal was to become a mother, not to give birth.

Fwiw, my grandmother said giving birth was like "shelling peas" and her first was breech! My MIL sneezed one out - and here am I, rubbish at pregnancy and rubbish at childbirth. Thank The Lord for modern medicine because 100 years ago I'd have been just a statistic.

Please do consider counselling because 3 years is too long to be carrying the weight of these unmet expectations. X

I too felt like I had been robbed of a normal birth, not due to the staff, just nature. Ds went down to 40 very suddenly, shortly after the induction drip was inserted, they didn't go up and all hell broke loose. They actually thought the machine was faulty but it wasn't. They ran me down the corridor, I felt the wash being put on my stomach then I was put under ga, he was out within 9 mins. Thank god they saved him, but it took me a good few years to accept what happened. He is 4 now and I still have to talk it through regularly, usually after watch One Born Every minute, but it doesn't make me cry anymore.

Perhaps investigate getting some counselling op, so you can put it all to rest.

Your feelings are valid, OP. please do not doubt yourself over the few posts that imply you should simply be pleased that your baby was OK.

Also, please know that, while your feelings over dc1's birth may colour your attitude towards any future labours, they won't necessarily be the same. Even after this miserable experience you can go on to have a life-affirming and uplifting labour experience, which may restore you.

My first labour left me distressed and angry for various reasons. I thought that I had processed it and come to terms with it (after all, baby was fine, PND is normal etc etc etc). 2y later, during a labour ward tour with a group of 1st timers when nearly due with dc2, the midwife taking us round noticed me getting agitated and angry - before I even realised it myself, I think I was still trying to deny and batten down the hatches defensively. She offered me an appointment with a specialist midwife for a full discussion of my hospital notes and a proper debrief.

The meeting was amazing. We talked for nearly two hours. The midwife listened non-judgementally, was frank when saying that something should not have happened, and fully accepting of my negative feelings. She explained everything in the notes. As you have discovered, it is such a release to at last understand why something was done to you. Suddenly I felt like I had been helped, rather than attacked. Well, with some things, anyway.

Best of all, she gave me explicit permission to say "No" and to demand explanation and clarification. Yes, sometimes things can need emergency response with no time for discussion, but immediately afterwards they can be calmly explained.

I went on to have a good birthing experience with dc2, at the beginning of which I said to the senior midwife "I do not want that midwife anywhere near me" (I recognised her from dc1's birth). My wishes were respected completely. I also told the midwife about some of the most distressing things that had happened with dc1's birth, and asked her to talk me through anything similar, rather than just get on with it, which she did.

My good birthing experience with dc2 wiped away most of my distress over dc1's birthing experience, and turned labour from a frightening prospect to a life-affirming, positive experience. I can honestly say that dc3's birth was an awesome, almost enjoyable experience.

But I'm sure I only got there because I was able to process and understand dc1's birth with the help of the specialist debrief.

Don't get me wrong, the experience hasn't gone away. A few years after dc3 was born I was about to have minor surgery on my ladybits and found myself having some pretty overwhelming flashbacks to being stitched after dc1 was born, so the memories are still there. But it's now just a chapter in my book, rather than the biggest book on my bookshelf, threatening to topple the whole shelf over.

Sorry for the long screed, hope it helps a bit

Decelerations are normal in labour due to cord compression and head compression. Infact if you aren't getting them in the latter stages of labour it is often concerning that labour isn't progressing as normal, ie. Head not coming down. There are many different types of deceleration, some normal and some abnormal. It's not black and white, depends on a lot of other things...how baby was coping in labour prior to the abnormal deceleration, any fetal abnormality, such as growth restriction, meconium stained liquor, etc etc.
5min decels aren't necessarily an emergency, some aren't acted on for longer than that. However, like I said this is based on a lot of other factors.
Rapid descent on the head can cause a short lasting problem..ie. Pale, floppy, unresponsive, until stimulated and sometimes a bit of air to inflate their lungs.
If your baby was coping well in labour, a 5min deceleration as you are pushing him out should not be a problem as your baby would have good reserves.

Difficult to answer unless you were there at the time

I'm sad you weren't informed what was happening, but glad your little one is well.

TheyremadItellyoumaaaad Super post, wish I could have written it.
Echo the thoughts about previous posters: "baby's fine, what are you bitching about"?
It's actually a LEETLE bit more complex than that, in a first world, developed environment with standards of care for both mother and baby. It is no longer the Middle Age expectation of "baby is well, you don't have puerperal psychosis, what more do you want??".
I hope.

nocoolnamesleft I think I was too shocked about everything that I didn't even realise how crap I felt about it until about a week later went it started to sink in, that's when I cried myself to sleep every night. On top of that I felt bad for feeling miserable about the birth because I should be grateful my son is here. Even if I had wanted to talk to someone about how I felt about it, there was no one there anyway. I buzzed for help, but no one came until midnight.

I couldn't hear the monitor, I was in too much pain. But it scared me at first because I couldn't hear it during contractions but it just slipped and they said they would let me know if they were concerned about him - but they didn't!

It wasn't the way my son's birth went, I could have dealt with that after a while if I had been given a reason for intervening. It was because I was left feeling violated as they had cut open my body, then prodded and poked me about whilst checking me afterwards, I felt like they were ripping me open. I didn't know what they were even doing, I didn't know she was about to put her finger up my back passage (I had to ask my mum wtf she was doing!) because they didn't tell me anything not even what injuries I had.

I understand that yes it's successful if baby's healthy but where else do you have a surgical procedure done to you, have your body cut open, and not get an explanation?
I just don't think it's right for mums to have to arrange to go through their own medical records to find out what happened to them and their baby. It's wrong.
Yes in their eyes, baby is okay so who cares? But on the other hand they are not taking into consideration what has been physical done by someone to the mother's body because it's just common practice to them. That's not good enough.

Theyremad Yes I found that too- my biggest worry was finding out that they didn't need to do it. But when I had a debrief I didn't feel so overwhelmed by it, I was just relieved that they didn't do it to hurry me up. I had a crap time recovering, I didn't even know what side to sit on because I didn't know what side the pain was coming from or where/how they cut me. I would flashback to the point I was about to get cut and after that I felt like I was in a horror film like Hostel. I cried, couldn't sleep and felt so brutally attacked. I tried so hard to get rid of any evidence that I had had a baby, it would probably be classed as self harm. But now I know why, thank god.
If only I had had someone there to tell me it's okay to feel this way about what happened even if your baby is fine I may not had tried to deny it, forget it and carry on pretending it didn't happen for so long. It's still a big part of woman's life, the day she brought her baby into the world, and that environment needs to feel safe to her. They potentially saved his life, but I can't get my head round why I wasn't told about fuck all that happened in that room to me, to my baby, to my body. It's insane they can get away with physical assault without an explanation.

I'm not necessarily scared of giving birth now. I'm scared that something worse will happen and I would have no idea again. Or even the same thing would happen. Or if I did one day have a normal birth and it went right this time, I don't think I would trust them not to intervene because of the scar tissue now. They'll assume 'fuck it, cut her again'. But now that I have scar tissue wouldn't it interfere with a 2nd birth? I'd definitely tear now whereas if I hadn't been cut the first time I maybe wouldn't have torn the 2nd.

My son was fine all through the labour but it's in my notes that the baseline was a bit fast at the start and during. Then his heart rate suddenly dropped to 80 with no gradually decel. It went up a tiny bit not for long, but down again.

I'm waiting for therapy, should take about 3 months. But what I need help with is the anger about why you don't get told anything because it feels like women giving birth are inferior to anyone else in the hospital. If I had just been told what had happened to my body and why, I think I would have felt a lot more respected and cared about. But instead I felt like livestock getting butchered alive.

Lonz, your fury is completely understandable. It's horrible to feel so disrespected, treated like an unfeeling, unthinking lump of meat. As if you were not particularly relevant to the labour.

But, please, please, let me reiterate: labour is not always like that. I have given birth 3 times, and, despite that horrible first experience, the vast majority of midwives, doctors, etc that I have had dealings with have treated me in a respectful, caring way.

As for scars and tearing, again, it doesn't mean that it will happen again. Despite tearing with my first, I did not tear at all with my third.

Just like your body needs treatment and a chance to heal, so do your emotions and your head.

Thank you. I think the thing that also 'distracted' them was that there was a girl there who was training (my mum told me) and she was meant to be the responsible midwife. Yet I felt uncomfortable with her all the way through, she had no confidence and she was being told how to do things. I didn't have encouragement or support. They were going in and out of the room and I felt like 'okay, fuck it so I'm on my own' then they started sticking their noses in at the last minute and I didn't know why. There was no communication whatsoever, from the start. There was no one there when I started to push, I wasn't checked to see if I was fully dilated. I didn't feel important. I felt like a guinea pig and they could get away with it because it was my first time.

My discharge notes were also wrong. So everytime I've gone to the docs about it they've downplayed my injuries.

But bottom line, ME and them both saved my son's life. They did it but if I hadn't allowed myself to be injured for my son I would have had grounds to take it further. It's actually against the law if mother doesn't consent.

I think it's diabolical that they were writing it all in my notes yet didn't think to tell me. It says 'coping well on gas and air' yet not once was I told. I'm more upset about the fact they didn't tell me the extent of my injuries though. It's mental. My sisters were told what injuries they had afterwards but didn't have stitches. They didn't even tell me they were stitching me, I just knew I needed stitches.

Please help, need some information. We had a similar problem 3 weeks ago and lost our baby, we have had a 2 hour meeting with the hospital and I received the tracings and documentation from the hospital, I'm not an expert but there are variable decelerations and at one point the nurse has a note in the watch child program (which they use to monitor the baby), so she called the dr who was on call and this is what the notes say "having variable, some not associated with contractions. Most recent variable was 3-4 minutes to return to baseline and presently tachy x 3 minutes." I went and reviewed the tracing at the time she mentions and it goes from 150 to 120 to 90 to 60 then 120 to 90, 120 to 90 then back up to baseline after this span lasted for 4 minutes, it only went to 60 briefly and I guess I'm just wondering if this would of been dangerous as at our 2 hour meeting the specialist said she reviewed the tracing and she saw no problems but once I reviewed it and seen the nurses note and noticed decels through the night and where it hit 60 a couple of times in the night I just wanted to get some information from someone more knowledgeable. Also I received a report from one of the main specialists who seemed to be one of the more senior people there who called the shots, in his report he references the exact same thing as the nurse, he said that "variables on tracings, tracings not picking up contractions but seems that some variables are not associated with contractions. One variable took longer to return to baseline (30-45 seconds) advised to continue to monitor if continues to call me again." - but the nurse said it took 3-4 minutes to return to baseline so someone passed the information on to him that it took 30-45 seconds to return to baseline so there is a huge discrepancy here. This happend about 20 hours after her water broke, she was 38 weeks and 2 days. (She was induced earlier on through the night then after 3 hours stopped because lack of staff then stared it again with epidural) the heart rate dipped more through the night but at 7:05am they checked her and she was at 7cm dialated she went back to the computer typed her info in then shift change came at 7:30 where the new nurse came in early and they talked 15-25 minutes (they thought I was asleep when they were talking and they didn't think my fiancée heard her because of the drugs) they talked about how they didn't have the required training on the new program, it was like being thrown to the wolves and wasn't fair working with patients and how one of them put a complaint to the union head, before the new nurse took over she said the delivery would be interesting. When the other nurse left I said what do you mean the delivery will be interesting and she said she has worked here for 12 years but she has been out for a year and there is some new technology and will take her awhile to get use too. Then she signs in and goes and checks her and there is a bunch of blood gushing out and the heart beat plummets (so they went 45 minutes without physically checking her and when we had the 2 hour meeting they said they went to check the patient every 15 minutes so they missed at least 2 checks when the nurses were getting ready for shift change and talking and when I checked the tracing it's just all over the place. I'm just looking for information if it is normal for the heart to drop to 60, 3 or 4 different times briefly through the night or this could be normal and if you have any advice on how I should proceed. Also I was wondering if anyone could tell me what it means when the say some variables are not associated with contractions? I also taped this meeting and in this meeting they were saying they have to do 15 minute checks and she said "I don't think, I don't think, I don't think that it would of made a difference because of a, I don't think because I'm, I don't think it would have changed." Then I say "I don't know but there's a chance it might of changed though right?" And she says yes on the tape and I have many discrepancies in here as well.

Decelerations are a normal part of labour caused by fetal physiology and a Ctg tracing can be very normal with this.
I think if you need more clarification on what you are reading you need to go back to the trust to discuss it. No one here can do that for you