Does anyone understand Fetal Blood Sampling, and more importantly, what the PH means?

[jofeb04]

Hiya,
I have been looking through my labour notes, and for the first time, noted that the result from the Fetal blood sampling test was a PH6 score.

What did that mean?

Thanks

is not the acidity of the blood something to do with measuring oxygen levels and whether baby is distressed ?

tis lulu BTW

Is this any use to you?
Also, here

Thanks for that Juuule. That first link was what I was looking for.

Camilla (nice nickname!), that is what it seems to be. DD was pretty low by the looks of it! (Trying to write birth essay).

If you had a true pH of 6.something your baby would probably not have been alright. Sometimes the blood sample can get contaminated by amniotic fluid or vernix or show and it can give a false reading. What happened after your low blood sample? Did they rush you for a cs or did they repeat it to see if it was correct? Was you little one ok?

Was rushed to theatre, but yes, dd was fine (cord around neck, needed O2).

I was rushed to theatre for an ECS with DS1 when they sampled his blood and found it was 7.17. As soon as they heard the result they went into full-on ER mode (except without the gorgeous male doctors ), the room filled with people, they raced me down to theatre and DS was born 10 minutes later. (And he's completely fine almost 10 years on.) As it was explained to me they weren't happy with anything below 7.24 and DS' result was way too low, so 6 seems extremely worrying.

Glad DD is fine.

Hi jofeb - agree with Maxbear. Less than 7.0 would have had you having a crash c/s and you would expect quite a flat baby, sounds like you were lucky or the pH was wrong!

Excuse my curiosity but what was the exact number, and they should have done cord gasses after delivery - what was the pH then and the base excess (BE), it will be a -ve number? (there will probably be 2 numbers, arterial and venous samples). Sorry to be technical but just interested

Hi Mintpurple,
Are you a midwife then?
Just looking at the Blood Gas Report, and I don't know what any of it means!

Below is all the information, hopefully you can make more sense than I can!

At 02.31am
pH - 6.58
Be - not known

At 03.24
pH - 7.359
BE - -3.7

At 03.26
pH - 7.374
BE - -4.7

Not sure if it makes any difference to you, but notes said I was tachycardic (sp?) and I had oxygen mask as soon as they noted this.

Any explanation appreciated!

Thanks

I'm afraid that the sample must have been contaminated as a pH of 6.58 would not have resulted in a live baby. The ones that were taken from the cord seem totally normal to me (I am a midwife) and would suggest that the fetal sampling was very contaminated and therefore totally incorrect . Don't feel as though you have had a totally unnecessary cs though as to have had enough concern to do a fetal blood sample must have meant that they were quite worried about the trace and you might well have ended up having a section anyway if the initial result had come back correctly, as further ones would have probably been lower. Another case of intervention leading to more problems unfortunately. Hope you and your dd are ok and didn't suffer too much as a result of the way she was born.

Hi Jofeb - yes, m/w in central London hospital - night shift, sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

As Maxbear said, 1st sample was obviously contaminated and next samples were completely normal. The BE means that your baby had good reserves left, which is good.

The cord round neck could have caused the CTG abnormalities which were twitching the doctors, and if you were tachycardic, you were probably dehydrated and had a temperature too. That will lead to a fetal tachy, which with dips from the cord compression, will lead you to have what is called a complicated fetal tachy, which will probably ultimately lead to a c/s even with a normal ph., esp if not that far on in labour.

You may have needed the c/s anyway, but it sounds like you had a pretty crappy labour before then, probably with a cast of thousands in and out your room