Hello, I hope this reaches someone who can give advice or helps others.
Not being taken seriously by professionals.
I gave birth to my son at 40, bang on due date and he’s just over 4 months old now.
I have had one son before 20 years previously.
Pregnancy was ok uk until the end where I had rib & pelvic pain that I never had when I was younger so I put it down to age.
I’m very active and a farmer.
For the pain I was advised to take low dose cocodamol and anything more would need baby to be monitored after birth for withdrawals.
I was also taking 100mg a day sertraline from a year before he was born and was advised to not stop taking this as mums well-being overrides the risk or chance of withdrawal in baby.
So I strictly kept to his advice.
Labour was slow, long and painful due to pelvic pain.
When I arrived at hospital I was told I was only two centimetres with only a look, no thorough examination. I believed I was further along and the pain and contractions were not how I remembered them, something didn’t feel right.
so I was given diamorphine which definitely knocked me out and helped with pain.
When I woke I was back in the same pain and groggy.
I wanted a water birth so they agreed to let me go in the pool and that was relaxing, with gas an air I just let nature take over and was progressing but slow.
The pain got worse and worse and I said I think my waters need breaking because I can feel his head but the bag had fluid poking too and was really putting pressure on my pelvis. She wouldn’t break my waters.
I remember baby being checked for heartbeat maybe two/three times in the water from 0300 until the midwife then said she was going home at 0830, and I felt confused and groggy and in pain when another two midwives came in and didn’t even look at me but just started chatting!
My contractions slowed and when they checked baby heart rate it was slow.
They seemed worried, I got more stressed, begged to get out the water and have waters broken.
They thankfully agreed.
By this time I was tired, groggy, and couldn’t push…pain was better now my waters were broken but I had no energy left.
Then lots of doctors/nurses came in at around 0900 and it looked like they were going to intervene but I didn’t want that so I pushed for my life and to my joy he came out.
I saw him for a moment and then he was whipped off me, looking blue.
The midwives distracted me by attempting to put a catheter in me and caused me so much pain, I didn’t need it in the end they apparently discovered.
They told me my baby had to go to neonatal.
He had tremors, low oxygen, irregular heart rate and said it was withdrawals from me taking sertraline, this confused me so much.
I obviously did my research and found it to be very rare. The doctor quizzed me like a drug addict and implied i must have been taking something else, are you totally sure he said! Obviously this really upset me.
They had him on a drip only, on antibiotics for possible meconium digestion and only let me hold him 24 hours later.
Finally I was able to breastfeed him and hold him.
He was tested again and again for withdrawal signs and kept us both in for 4 days until tests came back ok.
Everything was on but he still has the tremors and shivery bottom jaw and this worried me.
At two months he had this startle reflex thing when he was tired and when he woke mainly and sometimes just did it! It wasn’t ever a reaction to something, no noise or movement from anywhere. The HV said to just keep and eye on it.
4 months on and his tremors and jaw only happen rarely but he startles still with no stimuli, like he’s doing crunches all the time. And he’s started to do a very odd one arm only wave thing that’s getting worse and worse, more and more often.
I am just wondering if it’s normal or is this something from a birth injury or even something else because of my age?
Apart from this he is advanced of his milestones and has even been trying to copy words from 11 weeks!
One milestone not met is being in his front, he hates it…but I’m persisting.
I am still requesting more advice from professionals but it’s always good to chat with other mums in case they have a story that may help me.
Please follow the link to my YouTube video of my LO displaying this behaviour.Four month old hand waving concern
One arm movement worry!
Thank you for taking the time to read 🙏🏼