Annette continues:

‘You’re probably right in that Christian’s head must have been a bit asynclitic, although this was not mentioned and apparently he was direct occiput anterior. He did have the cord around his shoulder. I think that the bradycardia just after the spinal/epidural was due to the anesthetic rather than the cord being compressed. Again difficult to say. Perhaps the meconium which was present when my waters were broken at 9 cms might be due to cord compression or malpositioning. In any case, his head was never very low, at 0 /+1 station, and unfortunately I sadly never got to push once I was more comfortable as the bradycardia occurred about 5 minutes after the anesthetic was administered’.

Wintergreen comments

‘Given that Christian was not a weighty baby, did he have a big head? Weight and head size are two different things. A very big baby can have a smallish, normal head while a pre-mature baby can have a head size that is equivalent to a term baby.

We also knew that some babies could be compromised by the cord. First, we don’t know until after the birth whether the cord was compromised. Then we put 2 + 2 together. In the simplest form if we don’t feel we control labour. Who does? It’s the baby. The baby stimulates our body to open. That’s why it’s so important we learn to listen to the messages and work with our baby’s efforts. In the Birthing Better online birthing classes, you will be given all the skills to learn how you can read your baby’s messages and respond.

Often a baby with a compromised cord will stay high until full dilation then tends to barrel out.

Was the meconium fresh or old? And you know meconium is fairly common and means very little usually. His heart reaction could be due to the epidural and compounded by a compromised cord. Most cords aren’t a problem as you know but when they are, they are.

In fact this sequence is what many, many women experience … ‘I couldn’t cope, they tried to help then something happened and then another thing happened that required them to do something else and thank god the baby is safe … but I’m angry’. This sentence clearly shows a woman who lacks skills and feels out of control.

Usually, the anger is directed at ‘them’ or at our self. The first thing Birthing Better families had to do is to get past that. Whatever happened, happened. We all did the best we could at the time. So we explored and explored and healed and developed a phenomenal and extensive set of skills to prepare our pregnant body to give birth and a great set of birth and birth coaching skills that can be used in every type of birth.

Have you gone back to the doctor and asked why you had a failed ventouse? Also, ask how tight they found your vagina or if there was anything about your pelvis you should know about.

Also, did you do any particular type of sports? Do you store tension in your lower belly? You also need to keep in mind that when someone has sciatica their pelvis is affected. As you know all the nerves come down the spine and into the sacrum. Some of those impact the uterus, but what we noticed over the years is that the pelvis isn’t aligned because of sciatica, it makes the internal soft tissue inside the lower belly become tenser on one side. Often the baby’s don’t come into the pelvis. Also, the pain caused by sciatica causes the person to become tenser and unable to release the tension on the top of the vagina’.