How do I get checked for Pelvic Disproportionality?

[lilimama]

Em C sec last time, after 80hours labour at home. DS never engaged. Hoping for a VBAC this time, but I read lots about Pelvic Disproportionality on MNet and am wondering how this is checked as no-one has mentioned it to me. Thanks for your advice.

i had it checkced with an MRI scan after first birth and before second pregnancy.

i think it can be done by feel too.

did your DS not engage at all? was his head in an odd/deflexed position

i think i remembe your birth story, glad to hear you are expecting again

true cephalo pelvic disproportion is rare though, but if your baby did not engage at all then it is worth checking out.

As far as I know it's not something you necessarily can diagnose in advance, the reason being that both the pelvis and the baby's head can be flexible during labour, so you can't take a fixed measurement and see if they match, you can only see if they manage to adapt to one another at the time. I suppose they might sometimes guess at the likelihood based on previous experience? I had an em section last time too, and never engaged properly either, have been offered extra scans to estimate size of baby this time and will attempt to decide from there, but no one has mentioned disproportion to me either.

Hi Lulumama
Thanks for your imput....

After 75 hours he had engaged a "tiny tiny bit" according to both the midwife and gynae. Nobody said anything about odd positions, though they did have to do some serious thumping and jumping on me to get him out during section. could that mean anything. I did meet with the gynae 6 weeks later but she didn't have any light to shed despite persistent questioning from me. Just said it goes like that sometimes and it's a mystery most of the time and half the time doctors bullshit about reasons why according to her. So no clues there.
I"m 12 weeks now and busy finding my doula and planning my HBAC, despite being in a country where HBAC is "forbidden" and unheard of. For this reason I need to arm myself with bags and bags of confidence as I really need to know my own wishes and needs. Am wondering if the Pelvic Disproport. thing can be investigated further so that I can plan on in confidence. Hhhmmmmm.

Thanks Purple, that's interesting...will perhaps have a couple of extra scans as things progress...

perhaps you need to go through your notes from last time. a bit of engagement is something. and it could be to do with position of the head, not just size of the head and the pelvis

I've been told they can't measure for it and know for sure until you have a trial of labour. My DD didn't descend either, but head position not great but she did have 98th percentile head and was 9lb 1oz - when she was pulled out emcs i was told by the doctor that her shoulders were too big to come out naturally. I'm being scanned regularly next time 34 weeks then probably 38 weeks. This baby is measuring 99th percentile head so it doesn't look great. However, I've been so ill recently that I can't believe this baby is going to big.

I had a consultants appointment at 20 weeks, agreed at my booking in appointment to discuss my options. Currently classified as high risk VBAC but the good news is they have agreed I can't be induced this time.

Hi
Have a look at this link, I'm sure you'd find it reassuring:
ican-online.org/vbac/cephalopelvic-disproportion-cpd