Any midwives or mums who can talk to me about cord gases/hypoglycemia?

[kittykat90]

Hi all,

Would any midwives or mums who have experienced the same be able to give me some reassurance or information about low blood sugar at birth and low cord gases, please?

I recently gave birth to my daughter and I am waiting to receive my full notes. In the meantime, I was hoping if anyone might know what the following means in her report 'blood sugar/observations monitored in view of low gases @ birth', please? Or can give me some more information?

It is causing me some anxiety and I just want to know if my baby will be okay long term. 'Dr Google' is making me feel more anxious.

A midwife said my baby had low blood sugars at birth. After, she had 2 blood sugar samples that we were told were both fine (I think they were 3.2 each time) following birth and we were kept in for 24 hours for monitoring.

I was a bit all over the place after birth as i found it quite traumatic (induction, uterine hyperstimulation and very fast and painful contractions with G&A only), and didn't see the report on baby until I got home.

Baby was straight on me and stayed with me after birth, not taken away or anything. I knew about the blood sugars and additional monitoring, but nobody spoke to us in detail about the 'low gases', or what it means for our baby. I vaguely remember being told she was 'acidotic'? I was also told I had ketones in my urine which I thought was strange as I've had nothing flagged for all of my pregnancy. No GD or BP issues throughout pregnancy, just induced as overdue.

Grateful for any insights or experience anyone might have.

Low gases is a term written by someone who doesn't truly understand blood gases. What I have to presume they meant was low pH on the blood gases. This means that when they checked samples from the cord vein and one of the cord arteries, the blood was more acidic than the average. This was mentioned to you as that's what an idiotic means, but if they didn't explain it then it probably wouldn't have meant much. This implies that before birth the baby was starting to become distressed. So their metabolic demand was going up at the same time the placenta will have been struggling to meet it. This also causes babies to use up their ready supplies of energy, to make up for some of the difference. Which means those supplies are no longer there for after birth, so higher chance of dropping sugars. Though happily the sugars you mentioned are fine for a baby. All this is pretty common, and most babies bounce back nicely. Some babies go downhill during this process and need resuscitation immediately after birth, but clearly yours didn't which is very reassuring. If you want more detailed individual information, you could ask the hospital for a birth debrief.

Argh, autocorrect and won't let me edit. Idiotic = acidotic.

Thank you so very much for this - Really appreciated!!

Couple of weeks late replying sorry, but to add, the ketones in urine relate to dehydration which is common in labour and a transient thing, nothing to do with blood pressure or diabetes if you’re not diabetic, so wouldn’t have anything to do with the rest of the pregnancy