Delivering the placenta

[Dogsmom]

More newbie questions

I watched my first (and last) episode of One Born Every Minute the other day and a girl was given an injection to help her 'deliver the placenta', I assumed it came out with the baby, I've seen a few animals give birth and after the young has been born the placenta just follows.

Is it different for people? why do we need injections? do we have more contractions to do it? is it straight after birth or can it take a while? is it big? and finally where does it go, just all over the bed?

the injection is optional. It can speed the process up and reduce the risk of a haemorrhage but does increase the risk of the placenta being retained in the uterus and your needing surgery. Mine have previously been caught in dishes. (and the second one was very nice fried with onion gravy and mashed potatoes.)

The placenta comes after the baby, it does have contractions with it but mine weren't painful at all, just uterine tightenings to get it out! The injection helps this to happen, in theory to speed it up snd reduce risk of bleeding. You can refuse the injection and have a natural placenta delivery. The placenta is large, dinner plate size or so, looks like a massive piece of liver and they deliver it into a bowl. Yum :)

oh, without the injection does take more contractions and may take a while. (20 minutes last time for me) but is smaller and squishier than the baby.

I didn't feel anything delivering the placenta, MW just told me to push after DS had been on the boob for 15/20 mins and it plopped out.

Comes a few minutes afterwards, for me it was about 20minutes. Contractions to release it didn't hurt. By the time baby had come I was that shattered and wrapped up in him that I never noticed.

Thanks everyone, so we're given our baby first then, 20 minutes seems a long time, I had romantic visions of being passed a freshly washed and wrapped baby 2 minutes after birth and being left alone, I hadn't planned on more pushing & mess.

If you have the injection it's over in about 5 mins. And while you might have a wiped baby after 2 it won't be washed

My MW was very discreet - she just left us to it then told me to push again (I was still feeding DS) and it was out and then I had to be stitched up

I was unlucky in that the placenta got stuck, cue a drip with drugs to induce "labour" to deliver the placenta, and when that didn't work, an epidural followed by manual removal of the placenta. Not a barrel of laughs, but in the unlikely event it happens to you, not the end of the world either. I was quite bitter about the fact that labour itself was accomplished in five hours end to end with gas and air, and the placenta took a similar amount of time complete with epidural! Mainly because once you've had the baby, you're (quite rightly) shuffled down the theatre queue behind any caesarians that may come along....

The injection is either syntometrine or syntocinon (depending on which unit you're in) which cause the uterus to contract and expel the placenta and close down the blood vessels therefore decreasing risk of blood loss. If you've had a straightforward labour some people decline this as they would rather have no artificial drugs. In terms of being left alone 2 minutes after birth you may be pushing it! After you've delivered DS/DD and placenta (2-10 mins later if all goes ok which it does vast majority of times) you'll need to have your observations (blood pressure etc checked) and then most people will need a few stitches after first baby (having never stretched that much before it's pretty normal and definitely something you want put back together properly for later life!!!). After that you'll have skin to skin and talked through first feed and then you'll have time to yourselves!

If it makes you feel any better I was given the injection and placenta was delivers 4 sec after baby (still not quite sure how but thats what notes say) either way it was super quick.

I have a clotting disorder and so to minimise the haemorrhage risk I had the injection. It was about 5 mins after baby, MW tugged gently on the cord and pushed on my abdomen and it slid out.

Dead easy!

I chose not to have the injection my last birth and it was my most chilled. I till had the gorgeous baby to hold, fed him ate a sandwich half an hour later was asked to give one push and that was it. No stress

Unlike the other births where I have birth then the stress was on to get the placenta out before the injection closed everything