# Odds on cord accidents? Contains a happy story!



## ~*~MamaJava~*~ (Mar 7, 2004)

I know there have been a lot of tragedies on this board lately, and I don't want to be insensitive to some of the mamas who have lost babies recently due to cord accidents and other unpreventable happenings.







to you all.

I wanted to ask about the odds of cord accidents in particular, because of what happened with my son Lucas, and the fact that I'm pregnant again and just thinking about those types of things.

Lucas was born 14 months ago, and as far as we're concerned, it's a miracle that he's alive. My water broke with a gush 24 1/2 hours before he was born. I didn't start what I would consider really serious labour until about 9 hours before he was born. Everything went just perfectly, and the only drugs I took was some nitrous oxide towards the end. (It was a hospital birth attended by our family doctor). I had decided to forego lying on my back to push, and got the doc to lower the end of the bed so I could sit on it to push him out. Pushing took about 30 minutes, according to DH (seemed like less to me).
Out came his head, and all of a sudden, the doctors (there was a student there too) and nurses eyes got real big, and DH went white as a sheet. I wasn't really realizing that meant something was wrong, I was caught up in the relief I was feeling. Things started happening and the Dr got me to push out his body only halfway. Lo and behold, the cord is wrapped around his neck, tightly. Later we discovered it was wrapped around 6 times. They clamped, clamped, clamped and cut to get it off, and then I could deliver the rest of him. They went to check him out while the Dr had me push out the placenta, which was of course on a short length of remaining cord. Then she found two knots in the cord - one pulled tight, the other a bit looser.
He was fine (oxygen saturation 98%) but small (6lbs 8oz, 19") with very little fat on his body. Dr says the tight knot would have restricted nutrition in the last few months. She thinks the knots probably occurred in the second trimester, but wasn't sure about the severe looping. She said normally a baby with that level of cord accident would not survive. The people from pathology, once they got the cord, called up to ask what happened and were amazed when she said the baby was alive and just fine.

Here's what I'm wondering: has anyone heard of this happening before? To a live baby? Any idea what the odds are on something like this? I'm quite aware there's an extremely low possibility of this happening again to us - I'm not really worried about that. I also want this to be a reassurance to pregnant moms who might be worried - miracles can happen! If we had seen this in an ultrasound (which apparently you can't) everyone would have panicked and I would have had an emergency c section. It WAS very dangerous.

Any thoughts?


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## Belle (Feb 6, 2005)

Wow.








I know that having the cord wrapped around the baby's neck once or twice is not that uncommon. Knots in cords are more rare. Having it wrapped around the baby's neck six times I've never heard of. I can see why your dh and your birth attendants freaked. You're right though, that the odds of that happening again are next to nil.

I'm glad everything ended up okay. Congratulations on your new pregnancy.


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## danav (Jun 3, 2005)

WOW - _six times?!?_

There was a knot in Noah's cord - no one commented on whether is was especially tight or not, although I do have a photo of it. He did have very low apgar scores (like 1 and 2) but I believe that was due to his being surprise breech - I pushed him out in not such a great position to a midwife who had never caught a breech baby before, and he also had a very large head, so I believe there was some cord compression for a few minutes during his birth. Whether the knot had anything to do with anything, there's no way to know.


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## flapjack (Mar 15, 2005)

I've heard of ONE- which was five times, and happened to one of my great-grandmothers patients. (I have her diaries.) Two true knots and that degree of looping sounds exceptional, though.


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## ~*~MamaJava~*~ (Mar 7, 2004)

It was definitely not an everyday occurence at the hospital I delivered at







It's a rural hospital, but the nurses in the delivery room all had 30 years of experience and were totally amazed. (At the time everyone was 100% professional and calm, later on is when I heard them all talking, and when they came to me to tell me what a miracle this was).
About apgars - I think his were 8 and 9. It was weird, honestly. In a fantastic way, of course! The Dr says we have nothing to worry about as far as brain damage goes based on those Apgars and his oxygen sat. I think his being small probably helped avoid a lot more cord compression. He had a tiny head, too. Just a little mouse sized baby with huge brown eyes!
So I guess the odds are pretty much nil?
Sometimes I wonder what the meaning of all that is - my mom always says Lucas must have a special job to do!


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## pfamilygal (Feb 28, 2005)

WOW! I thought it was crazy that ds's was around his neck 3 times. I had forceps because his HR was dropping so fast as I crowned. He was black as coal and not moving when he came out. But after slipping the loops off and suctioning him he perked up.

Dd#2's cord was around her neck, looped around her body between her crotch, and then back up around her neck. I was so mad when she presented transverse after my water broke, but after the doc saw her cord I was somewhat thankful for the c-section. I don't know how she would have done in a vag delivery.

That is amazing to have 2 true knots. One of my dear friends gave birth to a stillborn son (full-term) due to a true knot in the cord. Broke my heart.


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## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Well, I know that I was born with an exceptionally long cord; it was, according to my mother's best estimates, at least 7 feet long and probably more like 8.5. She said that the medical student who caught me (poor fellow!) held it up and it hung all the way down to the floor in the middle, like a jump rope.







It was wrapped twice around my neck and several times around my body. I am alive and well to tell the tale-- I was born very very quickly, and there was no time during the birth for me to be oxygen deprived. I'm not sure if there were any knots in the cord or not, I'm inclined to doubt it. My mother says that her first words on seeing me were, "She's not that godawful big!" because she had been told towards the end of her pregnancy by the dr (who was palpating her uterus) that I would be huge. Apparently a lot of what he was feeling was umbilical cord.














I weighed 7 lbs 10 oz, and was born 8 days after my due date, which would put me on the small side. I also had some signs of postmaturity, but other than that all was well.


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## ~*~MamaJava~*~ (Mar 7, 2004)

Rynna, that's a funny story - your poor mother must have been scared to death that she was going to birth a giant baby!
Jump rope?


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## eilonwy (Apr 3, 2003)

Oh, they tried to scare her with it but it didn't work. My older brother, her first child, was 8 lbs 14 oz. Her brother, my uncle and my grandmother's first child, was (iirc) 9 lbs 15 oz; he was born after a grand total of 15 minutes of labor, and my grandmother (despite being a teensy slip of a person, she weighed about 105 when she delivered him) had no tearing or pain. My mother laughed in the doctor's face when he said that she was going to have "a huge baby who weighed almost 9.5 pounds if you don't induce on your due date."







She just laughed and said, "Um, no thanks."


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