HUH? It that the most awkward post title ever? It is not as awkward as taking care of a patient who is scheduled for a C-Section because of breech positioning, prepping her, going to the OR, opening up her uterus, and LOW AND BEHOLD, there is a vertex (head down) baby nestled in the womb. Ah shucks. Our bad! Look how cute your baby is! We will send in a Suit to your room as soon as possible to begin “service recovery.” Please mark you had an “excellent” stay on your patient satisfaction survey. Would you like a gift certificate to Target?
Yes I am being sarcastic and facetious. Hospitals would never be as generous as to give out gift certificates to Target…… Walmart maybe. But what about that whole, ya know, sectioning a mom for breech position when the baby is actually vertex. That can’t possibly happen, can it? Yes, unfortunately it can, but rarely. I have talked to many OB nurses who have experienced this or heard about it from others.
How can this happen? Mostly it is because of failing to do a confirmatory ultrasound for breech position before going to the OR, or misreading the confirmatory ultrasound, or letting a resident who does not know a cervix from his own name any orifice, read the confirmatory ultrasound report.
I am not here to flame medical professionals, because, ouch, I am one, and quite frankly (more fun with puns), mistakes happen. So who out there has experience with a mom who was sectioned for a breech presentation, when the infant was actually vertex? I am curious to know how it was handled by the staff once it was discovered, what was communicated to the patient, how the mom felt about it, etc.
Hat tip to the Enjoy Birth Blog who detailed an experience of a mom wanting a natural, vaginal delivery, only to discover that her baby was breech when she arrived at the hospital. Enjoy Birth pondered how often this happens, and that question made me think (and yes it hurt). It made me think about the opposite happening, about mom’s who go in for scheduled breech C-sections, only to discover the baby is vertex. Yeah…., unless they discover it when the uterus is already cut open.
RR
