Retained placenta - Do you have to have it manually removed?

[laurawantsababy]

Im pg with dc2 and didnt have a retained placenta with dd.

3 of my friends have had it and after hearing their stories of it being manually removed I am terrified.

What are the alternatives? Is it really as awful as my friends have made out?

oh lol, friends are evil sometimes aren't they?! Women just love recounting the horrors of birth

I had retained placenta with my dd. I had no idea what was about to happen and was therefore terrified. She had been born very quickly, with no drugs at all, but due to a car accident the placenta had been shoved under my ribcage. As my womb contracted, it got stuck.

I had an epidural inserted (scary, but done quickly and efficiently) and was wheeled off to theatre. I would NOT let go of the delivery mw at all and she was wonderful. The anaethestist was also brilliant and kept me topped up with pethidine (bloody marvellous stuff; I was happy happy!!). My dd had some lovely skin on skin contact with her daddy while I was in theatre. It was done and dusted and I was back with my beautiful newborn. I recovered very quickly from the drugs and the only problems I had was with my blood pressure being too low. However a corned beef and ketchup sandwich helped me there

So, it's pretty rare (hence why I hadn't read up on it), but it was done quickly and efficently and I suffered no ill effects. If you didn't have it before, it's unlikely you'll have it this time (unless your idiot dh slams your car into a humpback bridge at 60 mph ;)).

hth, and good luck

Thanks for that, I think my friends did scare me a bit! I guess if it does happen you just get on with it.

Nightmare about your crash, hope all is ok now.

Add the most evil and scary part of that story....

a NHS corned beef and ketchup sandwich !!!!!! Bleeegh

You're welcome Laura, if it happens it HAS to come out, but it's highly unlikely.

My poor dh has never lived that crash down , thing is I also fell down a flight of stairs at 17 wks and our car got shunted from behind on my due date. So basically when I'm pregnant everyone is out to kill me or so it feels! I'm 6 wks with #2 now and I'm waiting for the tide of disasters to start lol.

missmama you'd be frankly amazed what I would have eaten after consuming only fruit pastilles in the last 12 hours

I did think that was odd but each to their own!!!

If I was you I would walk around with Michilin man style padding on for this pregnancy! Good luck with this one, I hope everythings ok

lol, I'll wrap an airbed or lilo around myself. That should do it! No disasters so far, apart from fainting in the garage

Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy, I'm so jealous of you in the nice bit

Laura
As someone who's had a retained placenta the short answer is yes it does have to be removed. I am only aware of a manual removal method. I personally would choose an unpleasant and for me traumatic and brutal experience getting it taken out over the real possibility of dying from a complication of childbirth which can be "managed".
How awful it is, is very subjective plus some people are "luckier" and have an easier removal/degree of "stuckness" than others. I guess it is also about levels of expectation. I was terrifed about labour and delivery for the births of both my DDs. The naivete of first time round is gone and you are more aware of what to expect and what can go wrong.
Sorry if that is not quite the response you were after.

I had mine removed in theatre under a general so was unaware of it. What was awful was having to lay on the delivery table for 2 hours waiting for a surgeon!

I also had a retained placenta and had it removed under a spinal block. It was a bit as the surgeon had a huge plastic face mask on but other than that it was fine and only took about 30mins. Most painful was the tugging they did at the birth centre trying to get it out before I was transferred to the hospital! No other issues with the birth though, all went fine.

Obviously couldn't move legs after op and therefore also had a catheter. Not a big prob and was all okay and catheter removed within 24 hrs.

It appeared that my placenta came away fine just my cervix contracted too quickly with the syntometrine so it had nowhere to go. There's nothing you can do either way, not having syntometrine can also cause problems so it's a bit pot luck.

Hoping everything goes well for you.

its pretty rare to be honest so i really would not worry yourself. but yes you have to have it removed somehow i had it manually removed and was not pleasant but not going to post all about