Cord wrapped around baby's neck and stomach

Acacia · 01-12-2007, 11:52 AM

A baby was having decels on the monitor and was taken by emergency c section. As baby is brought out of mom the doc says ohhh okay that's the problem, the cord was wrapped around the neck twice and teh stomach once.

Now I have heard that cords are not really an issue when they are wrapped around the baby because the person attending the birth just has to slip the cord around the baby and all is well. Do you think this doc was trying to cover his butt and do a lot of docs blame sections on this happening? I hear it a lot in women who have had sections...that the cord was wrapped around the neck.

Lindsay · 01-12-2007, 12:48 PM

Sometimes they're an issues, sometimes they're not. My second son had his cord wrapped around his neck tightly enough to leave his heartrate in the 90s, but he was born rapidly. My midwife would have been concerned if the delivery process had been much slower.

DL · 01-12-2007, 03:03 PM

My first ds had had a nuchal cord (around neck) wrapped tightly 3 times around. I had oxygen and had to push baby out as quickly as possible. He was and is fine.

I had a client last year who had to have a Cesarean because of the cord. While pushing, babe kept having steep decels, and just wouldn't come down far enough...despite being obvious to the OB that babe didn't seem "stuck" on a bone. I was stumped (as was the OB and nurses) because I kept changing her positions thinking of cord compression and possible malposition. No matter which position I suggested, FHTs improved and then quickly took a dive again. So...Mom had a Cesarean, and her dh and I accompanied her.

As I watched baby being pulled out, it was quite obvious why baby wasn't coming down and had those steep decels. Baby had a longer than usual cord; it was wrapped tightly around her neck, each arm, her tummy, and one leg!!! I've never seen such a tangled mess!

Hind sight being 20/20, I then realized that the cord was still being compressed in no matter which position we tried, hence the reoccurring decels. It might've been a different part of the cord each time, but there was always at least some compression and nothing we could do about it. This was the case of a necessary Cesarean birth. Mom and baby girl did well.

The sad thing was that this was a mom who was so VERY close to getting her first VBAC.

I'm glad that I saw it myself, or I might not have believed the necessity of it.

RosyDoula · 01-12-2007, 04:57 PM

Having the cord around the neck is a common occurence - somewhere around 50 percent of babies come out with one. So yes, you'll see alot of C-sections with babies who have them - but it is rare for that to be the cause of the baby's distress in a normal, unmedicated labor.

Its not an emergency situation, and it SHOULD NOT need to be unwrapped before the baby comes out. It's extremely rare that a baby cannot be born because of a loop (or four) of cord around the neck.

Touching the cord affects the flow of blood within the vessels, and can be very painful for the mother to have fingers touching in there. UC mothers like myself and UC-friendly/hands-off midwives leave it alone.

purpleheather79 · 01-12-2007, 08:00 PM

Nuchal cords are very common... about 25% of babies are born with one. My second son was born with a short nuchal cord x1 and he was born via c-section for late decels. He was also over 11 lbs so his size may have contributed to the cord compression. Most of the time a nuchal cord does not cause any complications and no c-section is needed.