Placenta removal

[Mumtobe202310]

Dear mumsnetters,

Hope you're all well.

I gave birth on the 28th of September this year. It was my first pregnancy following a miscarriage. I had a fast labour (in total it took 3 hours 43 minutes) home to baby on chest. It was normal delivery I begged for epidural but don't know why I didn't get it (I was 6cm dilated when they checked my cervix when I got to hospital and they could see baby's head!) I was off on gas and air so memory is very hazy. After I gave birth, when it got to the placenta removal, in my birth plan (nhs yellow book) I put down physiological removal of it so no injection I wanted it out normally. However, when nurse came in my legs were shaking constantly and I was just so numb and told her pls I don't want it now. She goes on about how she doesn't have time and they are understaffed etc and I gave in after some minutes. But my goodness, no word of a lie, I can give birth a thousand times if it meant not delivering the placenta because I still feel traumatised. I genuinely think she put her hand up in there and she was saying she is checking for clots etc (they had to put me on gas and air for this as it was too painful) and then I can't even remember what happened but I must have said yes to them giving that injection thing. As I was on gas and air I can't remember properly. But my goodness, she was rough and rude, and I felt rushed into saying yes more like coerced to be honest and it has to be one of the worst feelings ever because I genuinely believe she put her hand in there and she was saying she is looking for clots so I have no idea what happened. Yes, I understand it's necessity for the removal of placenta, however I am just so traumatised to how it happened. Also, I'm nearly 8 weeks postpartum and have weird sensations in my abdomen area. I have no idea what it is but part of me is scared that it's due to how my insides were handled during removal of placenta. Please let me know if this is how painful the removal of a placenta is usually and if its normal for a hand to be shoved up there. I'm just so upset because after that, I felt so numb and unphased and I was feeling so cold. I think I just layed in bed numb.

I had mine taken out but thank god I had had an epidural. I was told I wouldn’t have managed the pain if I wasn’t numb. They were rough with me too but I didn’t actually feel it, they had to remove mine as I was haemorrhaging quite severely (it was retained)so they hadn’t time to be gentle. In all the excitement of having someone shoulder deep I got quite a tear aswell so I was quite bad afterwards! It’s not nice even when your numb so you have my sympathies for sure. I was a bit traumatised after I have to say, because I could see the panic that they were trying to hide. For my first baby the placenta came out fine so there was none of that! It was my second that caused the trouble!!! Awful though.

Thank you so much for your response. And for understanding that it wasn't nice even being numb, I feel seen and validated. Thank you for sharing your experience! You're a trooper xxx

With DC1 I had an epidural but I remember the feeling of them “scraping” around inside my uterus well. I suffered PPH so they needed to check it had all come out (technically not retained). I felt it, but it didn’t hurt because of pain relief. With DC2 my epidural failed so no pain relief, my placenta didn’t come away with the injection and they were concerned I’d retained it (this was my worst fear as numerous family members have had retained placenta and needed surgery). Fortunately my midwife let me wait a bit longer and it did come away in tact, they didn’t have to check me.

Ask for a debrief and request your notes. Also you can put in a complaint to PALs about the midwife.

Also she should have only been removing it if there was a problem. Normally, you either wait for it to come away itself with some material effort - but if pushing from mum or have the injection and then the midwife uses traction on the cord to remove it once it has separated from the uterus wall. Did you have a retained placenta or bleeding issues post birth that they needed to get it out asap? Though again normally with retained placenta they would do that in theatre with spinal and a doctor etc. very rare for a midwife to manually remove the placenta by putting her hand inside. Really would get your notes etc to find out what happened and talk through your trauma from it.