My scan went fine but he said something about my placenta...help me!

[LadyOfTheManor]

Basically my sonographer (and also a midwife) said my placenta was hmm something, but he meant it was in front of the baby (against my tummy). He said no problems for pregnancy or birth. I'm trying to think of the word which was something like onterior or proterior or something.

However, discussing it tonight with my mother and she said that it can cause problems when in labour in case it blocks the cervix or something.

Had one "normal" pregnancy, home birth and delivery with ds and was hoping for the same this time around...can the placenta cause that much of a problem?

I think you mean Anterior, this is fine, might mean you dont feel the baby as well cos it will mask the kicks a bit.

Low lying placenta is when it causes problems cos then it blocks the babys exit, but I doubt you have that as they would have offered you another scan at 36 weeks to see if had shifted.

HTH x

Fabulous. No it defo wasn't low lying it was anterior (I'm crap with remembering medical terminology!). Ok well that's a load off my mind. THanks :)

Anterior. I have the same. Did he specify high or low?

Yes I would think they said anterior placenta. I had that with ds, but by 35 weeks was thankful as my insides were getting a bashing. Dread to think how much more I wouldmhave felt with a posteroir placenta.
Think the dangerous position for a placenta is placenta praevia (sp)

'scuse the fat finger typing

No Banana he just said I might not feel the kicking as the placenta is in the way....

Anterior placenta is no biggie, it sounds scary when they mention it because it's like "what did you say about my placenta?!" but ultimately it makes very little difference. I had an anterior placenta with DS and have it again this time.

The main things are that it can muffle the kicks and wiggles, imagine having a cushion strapped to your front and baby is hitting the cushion. Eventually baby will be strong enough/big enough to kick/punch around it or hard enough against it to be felt. Sometimes they hide behind the placenta though, I'm 33 weeks and had to go to MAU two weeks ago as hadn't felt DD moving. When the MW had a feel DD was lying with her back against the placenta and she was moving (CTG picked up lots of movement), I just couldn't feel it.

The other thing is that it very slightly increases your chances of an OP baby (face up/their back pointed at your back) in labour as babies like to face the placenta but the majority of babies do turn and even if they don't a normal vaginal birth is still entirely possible - DS was OP and delivered vaginally.

Everything CBear6 says is true.

I had an anterior placenta with dd and it does change the quality of movements. Plus, dd very much liked to face the placenta, as babies do and therefore was predominantly in an op position (occipito posterior/back to back).

There's nothing to worry about in terms of delivery. Because while your chances of having a back to back baby due to an anterior placenta are slightly higher, you still find that the majority of babies are front to back, those that aren't often turn and you can deliver an op baby vaginally, sometimes very 'easily'.

If you do find that your baby is op, the spinning babies website is very interesting. I did find that having a baby in that position while pregnant caused some back ache. Sitting on a birthing ball, not slumping/leaning back on a chair helped and crawling round on all fours would sometimes persuade her to move for a while. She always went back though.

Hope everything else was fine with the scan...

Yes, everything else was healthy and happy :)

The thing is, I'm highly allergic to opiates, resulting in a c section being virtually impossible...and I've often heard that "back to back" babies are much harder to deliver...so as you can imagine I'm now starting to panic, because a c section is not really a "do-able" option...

I'm also scared of opiates (I hate the spaced out feeling) and the thought of an epidural is enough to make me want to hide in a cupboard so I wouldn't intentionally have one.

With DS I was fine at home until around 4-5cm at which point I demanded DH take me back to the hospital (we'd already been when I was 2cm because I didn't believe I was in early labour). I just had gas and air for the rest of delivery up until pushing at which point they took my lovely gas pipe away and I went it alone. It's been my only labour so far so I have nothing to compare it to but it was do-able. It hurt, don't get me wrong, but I've no reason to believe it hurt any more than any other labour.

Moving around, bouncing on a ball, and kneeling/leaning forward can help during labour to take pressure off your back. I've been told that the birthing pool is excellent for an OP delivery, I didn't get it last time but I'm determined to use it this time.

There's an anaesthetist who posts on MN called gasman. You could PM to see if he knows anything about what you do for a cs when a patient is allergic to opiates. It must come up sometimes and might reassure you.

Please be reassured that you are still vastly more likely to have an oa (front to back) baby than an op baby, they're not necessarily harder to deliver and there are lots of positions that can help if you do find yourself with an op baby. They sometimes manually rotate them in labour too (or before labour occasionally) and many turn spontaneously during labour. Hundreds of women deliver back to back babies without incident. It's not something that will worry your caregivers at all at this point.

Try and look at it that there are myriad things that can happen during labour, some significantly more likely that an op baby, but largely you don't worry about them. Chance is on your side. Especially having delivered before. Your body does know how to do this.

Yes SOH, I just checked Google and it isn't impossible.

Will locate Gasman as I saw him on another thread yesterday. I was on life support for 3 weeks after having a general for my appendix and then had a home birth with nothing (merely because I cannot be administered any of the good stuff!)...wouldn't like this to cause a bit of a problem and be rush in as an emergency.

Some babies do turn by the time labour comes around, according to Google so perhaps I'll just keep an eye on it...thanks :)