placenta adhered to caesarian scar - anyone experienced this and what was the outcome?

[deaconblue]

my poor friend is in hospital on total bedrest and will probably be until her baby is fit enough to be delivered early. She's 32 weeks pg, has bled heavily throughout and has recently found out her placenta has adhered to her previous C section scar. She may need a hysterectomy immediately after the baby is delivered. Our group of friends is so worried about her, wondered if anyone else has experienced such a thing?

There was a lady in hospital when I was with DS who had this - they treat it like an entire placenta previa and cut higher - but it's considered to be a major op and quite dangerous. She does need to stay on bedrest completely and not try and get up at all. She's made it to 32 weeks already though - if they need to, they'll do it at 34 - the lady I knew had hers at 35 weeks, he was absolutely fine and she was too but they had to wait till they had lots of spare blood ready to transfuse her and a bed in intensive care for both of them (which in the end were not required).

She may end up with quite a large scar and yes if there is a lot of bleeding they do take the womb out.

Poor thing, it must be very scary for her. But in modern hospitals it's manageable.

Hello, yes, me! I had major placenta previa (placenta completely covering cervix and bottom of womb) and when they opened me up for my c-section they also discovered that the placenta was adhered to the back of the womb. To start with the good news, it is 13 weeks later and dd and I are both fighting fit, she is beautiful! I did not have a hysterectomy and think in general if they know what they are dealing with in advance there is a better chance of avoiding one. Unfortunately the risk of hysterectomy is quite high (I've heard up to 50% I'm afraid). As your friend is already in hospital and has bled heavily she will almost certainly be there till delivery now. I was in from 29 weeks, dd was delivered at 36 weeks and we were in for another week after that. The not-so-good part of the story is that I bled heavily at dd's birth (I lost 7 litres) obviously I had to have a massive transfusion and ended up in intensive care and unfortunately dd's lungs were underdeveloped and she spent 6 days in nicu/scbu. That was quite unlucky though and if your friend gets to 36 weeks the babe ought to be fine. In my follow up appointments I have been strongly advised not to get pregnant again as while it is possible, the chances of having the same complications are high and would almost certainly end up with hysterectomy, so your friend might have to cope with the idea that her family is complete anyway.

From your perspective as a friend please visit her as much as possible and encourage others to do so. It is utterly grim being in hospital not knowing when the baby will be born and being constantly anxious about his/her health and your own. Visits are as precious as gold dust, I owe the friends who regularly visited me my sanity! (such as it is!). Also I assume your friend has at least one other dc, I found it v tough being away from my dd1.

It's not a great situation I'm afraid, but as I say, I'm through the worst of it now. Your friend is lucky to have a friend whois worried about her, as I say my friends and family were just fantastic. I hope it all turns out ok, best of luck to her!

thanks ladies. I feel so awful for her. Her ds is only 15 months and she's missing him dreadfully. I just can't imagine how she will cope with a 16 month old, a newborn in special baby care and potentially the recovery from a hysterectomy. I think she's feeling really scared about the bleeding/transfusion too. Have had no reply to texts for over a week so I think she's feeling even more depressed too.

Oh gosh, yes my dd was 17 months when I went into hospital, it's miserable, but believe it or not she adapted brilliantly when I came back with her little sister, there has been very little jealosy etc. If you can do pop in to see her, even if you haven't heard from her. It's so isolating, it's easy to just withdraw from everything, also she might be on the delivery suite, I got taken up there with every bleed and it's more difficult to communicate with the outside world. Can you contact her dp & find out what's going on? Also people bringing in real food to alleviate the boredom of hospial food was very welcome. Sorry, I don't want to sound like I'm telling you what to do, it's just that these are the things that helped me a lot.

well we finally heard this morning that her baby dd was born on Wed. Just 32 weeks but 4lb13 and doing well. Friend has been in ICU for 24 hrs but is doing well. I think they will be in hospital for a while so I plan to pop in wiht a teeny tiny outfit for baby

Well congratulations to your friend! I hope that she and the baby both continue to get better, hopefully they will soon be home and putting it all behind them.

hi rek21, very interested in your post. I had placenta previa with last babe (no5) no bleeding or problems at all. BUT, im sure i heard somewhere that it is more than likely going to happen again, is that what u were told?