Hi fellow IM's, so I am almost 8 weeks pregnant. My partner found out a couple of weeks ago and we were quite shocked as we weren't trying lol. Now that we are over the shock, we are very happy. This will be my third and his first lol. Anyway, my first two births were vaginal and both resulted in quite heavy haemmorrages. I needed blood transfusions after each one. My youngest daughter is 8 but i am starting to worry that i may haemmorrage again with the next birth...has anyone gone through this or has your doctor offered you a c section. I'm thinking if i am offered a caesarian i will jump at the option. I am really worried about having another haemmorrage big time.
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Congrats on the pregnancy :) I can understand your anxiety over the haemorrhage issue. I had quite a bad one with my first and was worried it would happen with my second, but it didn't. Phew. But I have to point out (I'm a midwife), you are likely to lose more blood in a caesarean than in a vaginal birth. And it makes sense if you think about it - your uterus still has to contract back down to a small size whether you have a vaginal birth or a caesarean birth. And then with a caesarean, there is also blood lost making the incisions through your skin, abdominal muscles, and uterus. It's quite alarming to watch sometimes, half a litre of blood can gush out of all those blood vessels in mere seconds. I'm not trying to make it sound scary, it's just how it is. And from a technical point of view, blood loss is called a haemorrhage at a vaginal birth when 500mL or more is lost, but at a caesarean, it's only called a haemorrhage when 1000mL or more is lost. Also, measures put in place during labour and just after a vaginal birth to prevent a haemorrhage have changed a little bit since your youngest was born - the use of ergometrine (or syntometrine) might be considered for you (unless you have had high blood pressure) and also misoprostol. All in conjunction with the usual things that have been done for years for women with a history like yours - like fundal rubbing, syntocinon injection and possibly an IV syntocinon infusion after birth - as well as natural methods to increase your own oxytocin like skin to skin and early breastfeeding (which is usually standard anyway). If your team at the hospital is ready for it and puts all their preventative measures in place, a haemorrhage may well be prevented. Or at least minimised, so that you might avoid the blood transfusion this time, yay :) Hope all goes well! xo