What is DIC (Disseminated Intravascular Coagulopathy) at birth?
Chiqui Brosas on Oct 29 2007 at 9:58 pm | Filed under: Childbirth
I got curious when I learned one of my sturdents had DIC. When I asked my OB friend what it ment. She said DIC means disseminated intravascular coagulation. That means that the mother’s situation is critical and is bleeding internally.
Later when I asked my student what had happened, I learned that after she gave birth vaginally, her uterus would not stop bleeding. All measures were taken by her doctor, uterine massage, medication inserted in the rectum and injection of oxytocin at it’s safest maximum dosage was given but the bleeding still would not stop!
The only recourse to take to save her life was to perform a hysterectomy! How drastic but there was no other choice! For a young mother this is bad and sad news. From an epidural birth, she was given general anesthesia and wheeled in the operating room. At least both her ovaries were still intack. Her doctor said she could, in the future, have test tube babies with a surrogate mother. That would still be her baby. That is another issue all together.
Her doctor said we don’t know the reason why it happens. It just happens! She said the last case she had was last 2000. In the hospital they have around 1 to 2 of that case happening only in a year. So it is quite seldom that it happens.
Hospital births are the safest place to give birth in for a first time mother if we consider all the possible incidences that can happen to her during labor and delivery. I’ve come to realize that anything can happen in labor even if the mother is not high risk. I’ve heard of other stories from my OB friends where the mother even died.
I agree with the Bradley method when they say that the safest way to give birth in is in the natural way. The way mother nature intended it to be. No drugs or medication nor intervention. No induction or augmentation unless absolutely neccessary. The OB’s are only there to make sure everything goes well. They are there to intervene only if necessary due to medical reasons.
We have to be thankful to God for our good health, for our children and mothers! It’s funny how some mothers like to have their unborn babies aborted while others long to have and can not. Children are always a blessing. They are God’s reward. In the bible it says, happy is the man who has a quiver full.
Having a baby and giving birth is indeed a joy to the couple but it is also a risk a mother will have to take each time. That is why regular visits to the OB is so important! It is one way of staying low risk and healthy. Thank God for OB’s!