Anterior Placenta Experiences

[gysela]

Tell me if it makes a big difference with your pregnancy. I have the most severe backaches which didnt happen with DDs (both posterior placenta) and it almost feels like the baby is sitting on my lower back. Sometimes I have the worst sciatica as well.He moves when I sit on the birthing ball though.
Is anyone else with an anterior placenta having these horrible backaches?

DD was in deep transverse arrest Phlebas. I asked the cons at my debrief if the prom had contributed to her position and he said you just can't answer that. But I think logically with no waters to guide her down, of course her head was free to twist itself. She was very battered and bruised with some muscle damage and a bad tear to her head from a failed ventouse that like you only managed to induce a couple of long bradycardias because she just wasn't coming out that way. I had no peaks to contractions and they were 2.5-3 minutes long with very, very short breaks. Her head also remained high at the level of the spines (they couldn't feel she was asynclitic until the cs as she was just too high up).

I'm forever trying to ascertain exactly what happened and why. I don't think there is an answer.

Very interesting thread and has confirmed what I already thought about my labour.

With DD, I had a high anterior placenta and my membranes ruptured before labour began. I would have classed it as PROM because after 48hrs of quite painful contractions, I was still only 2cm dilated and labour was not progressing well. I ended up on the hormone (syntocinon) drip and DD was born 8hrs after that - total time for labour was 53hrs. The hospital recorded my waters breaking as SROM and not PROM, mind they also recorded my delivery as spontaneous despite having an augmented/ induced labour . DD was ROP (right occiput posterior) during labour and was born 'stargazing' - the length of labour was put down to her position. I always wondered whether the position of the placenta was a considerable factor in the position of DD during labour and I guess it probably was...

Am now 27wks pregnant with DC2 and again, I have a high anterior placenta. I have my 28wk check next week, so may ask some questions about the likelihood of having another OP labour.

First baby posterior placenta, back to back labour, long and horrid. Second baby anterior placenta, perfect position, quick labour and waters broke 2 pushes before she was delivered - was lovely! If that reassures you any. . I had SPD 2nd time round but don't think that was related to the placenta, but had chiropractic treatment for that which incidentally got the baby into a better position (very visibly - I went in and she was diagonal, came out and she was straight), so if you're worried about positioning that might be something worth considering.

Found this great website on positioning www.spinningbabies.com/baby-positions/posterior
Its not all doom and gloom and thats reassuring.

I also have 28wk check next week Bunny. I will talk to midwife about it as well and ask her to check what position baby is in now (although I know the position may change totally in the next couple of months)

The spinning babies website is one of the most linked sites on MN (after the Daily Mail and Boden ).

Don't be disheartened though if your baby prefers a position of its own choosing. DD wouldn't shift and I felt so very guilty that all of the techniques wouldn't move her. Thought I'd failed. My lovely consultant assures me that some babies are just comfortable in an OP position and it's not a position that he immediately regards as problematic.

Hahaha they must be getting a lot of hits from mumsnet alone!
I am going to have to trust the process a bit more and stop thinking too much about whether its going to be a difficult labour or not. My second DD was a 28hr labour and she wasn't OP. It was painful but I managed somehow without pain relief because I was away in a country where women are not offered pain relief. Its comforting to know I can have an epidural if its too difficult

I have had backache with all three children. Two anterior placentas; one posterior. I felt far more movement with my middle child where the placenta was posterior but had straight forward births with all three. The youngest was posterior until I went into labour but he turned and was born pretty quickly. I do have a retroverted uterus and read someone this makes anterior placenta more common but that could be hearsay

ShowOfHands your labour sounds so similar to mine:( How did your section go? I had a very big PPH because my uterus was atonic & it took bloody ages to control the blood loss (BP 50/20 transfusions etc etc).

I should have been transferred from the MLU to the consultant unit far earlier than I was. There were serious concerns raised about my treatment in the case conference afterwards e.g. they hadn't been checking my temperature at all. For the entire time I was in there I was completely engrossed in surviving the pain & shut down. I knew when I was transferred that it would have to be a section - I wish that I had had some pain relief beforehand so that I could've been able to communicate that it wasn't a normal labour & I needed to be somewhere safer. The midwives were so focussed on the fact that I was doing it without pain relief that they totally missed the lack of progress & my deteriorating condition. It was dangerous to leave me labouring for so long. I shouldn't have accepted the synto, at that point I was contracting continuously - I'm surprised I didn't rupture & amazed that dd was in as good condition as she was.

I don't trust midwives at all now & that was in important factor in my deciding to go for ELCS rather than VBAC in my next pregnancies.