Monday, December 31, 2012

Luckier Than I Appreciated

I've been reading my medical file with respect to my daughter's birth - and knowing what I know now, my doctors and the hospital are lucky that a worse outcome is not part of the litigation - and I am lucky (fingers crossed) to have what appears to be a neurologically normal toddler.

One of my greatest fears about vaginal childbirth, is the potential for it to result in lifelong neurological disability. Not everyone gets through vaginal childbirth unscathed - some are left with lasting physical and mental disabilities. I understand that it is rare for such things to happen, but the reality is that someone is that one in a thousand person. I have personally known people who did not make it through birth unscathed. It was one of the reasons I was choosing cesarean for the birth of my daughter. I was happy to trade some increased risks for a decreased risk of that particular outcome.

So when I read the following in my medical record - I was taken aback, because the outcome I feared the most was much closer to becoming reality than I had thought.

My daughter had a tight nuchal cord (it could not be reduced over her head), had no spontaneous respiration for the first minute of her life, cord blood gases were ordered with the notation of gases 7.0, bicarb 17 and BE -15.

I'm a little more thankful for my daughter and a little more livid at what happened.

9 comments:

  1. Are those numbers in the normal range?

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  2. From what I've been able to determine those numbers are marginal and indicative of an increased risk of an adverse outcome.

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  3. That is dodging a bullet! Were they any indications of the nuchal cord during labor?

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  4. It would appear that there was some oxygen deprivation during the final stages of delivery but delivery occurred before any brain damage resulted. There is some evidence of low heart rates. In short she needed to be delivered when she was delivered.

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  5. Wow. This makes me so angry. You're still moving forward with litigation, right? I'm so very excited about it.

    -The Pragmatist.

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  6. Yes we are moving forward with the litigation.

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  7. I can't remember if you said that there was an anesthetist available at all during your daughter's delivery. I visited a friend at our local "women's center" (semi-detached from hospital) and found out there is no 24 hr anesthesiology coverage on site. When a laboring mother comes in, one is called in to stand by. I didn't want to make waves in front of the new mother, so I didn't ask "What happens in the case of a crash section?"

    Maybe higher risk mothers go to the other hospital in town, but this mother was a bit of a risk being an older multipara with GD on her eighth birth in 12 or so years.

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  8. PS. Planning an unmedicated birth, I should have added.

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  9. Karen - my understanding of the situation at Victoria General when I gave birth is that there was an anesthesiologist at the hospital 24/7 - however, that anaesthesiologist was responsible for all areas of the hospital and not just labour and delivery. I further understand that there was a on-call anesthesiologist who could be called in, in the event of a 'life or limb' emergency who would be available within 30 minutes if needed. During my labour and delivery with my daughter I was not provided access to an anesthesiologist and was told that the anesthesiologist was not available. Victoria General hospital is a level 3 hospital that does more than 2500 deliveries per year - it is my understanding that it now has dedicated obstetric anaesthesiology.

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