United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Recently a guest by the name of Janice posted and said that if your doctor had you push before your cervix was dilated to a 10, then that could cause an injury.
I have never heard of this but am VERY interested in learning more. Janice and others out there, have any of you heard of this? Is there any substantiated truth to this? Anything in any literature or journal articles?

I hope to hear from anyone who has any thoughts or info. Thank you.

Guest,
I think it's very possible and I think it was part of the cause of my daughter Melanie's injury. They had me pushing for 3 hours then one of the nurses did another exam and said that part of the problem why she wasn't coming out was my cervix was not quite at 10 so you figure her shoulder had to be pounding around my bone area. Her shoulder also did get stuck because the McRoberts was done althought none of it was documented and it was my first child so I didn't know what went on at the time. It wasn't until afterwards that I started researching and learned what happened.
When I went to a high risk ob for my second pregnancy the nurse there said that's a possible cause when no shoulder dystocia is present. If they started inserting little cameras when we were delivering maybe we'd all get a clearer picture of what actually happens.
Cindy

they manually pulled open my cervix and had me push at 7 cm... [it was truly the most barbaric thing I have ever experienced in my entire lifetime and probably having them take a knife to me and give me c-section right then and there without pain meds would have been less painful]

this pushing through a still closed cervix causes a very molded football shaped head... but I don't know how or if this would relate to shoulder dystocia where the shoulder bone gets impacted under the pelvic bone...

This might be something to ask Dr. Robert Allen - the engineer who has studied SD births to the max... I'll see if I can find his email address.

-francine

Oh my goodness Francine that's so aweful!!!!!!

I was kind of thinking along of the lines that Melanie's injury may have started in utero because they had me pushing for so long. If you ever find out an answer to that please let me know. I think I'm going to start researching this as well.

Cindy

Cindy- My birth was shocking and I chose the "natural" way - with a midwifery team and doctor backup in a hospital - so that I had the best of both worlds. I ended up with the worst of both worlds. I never in my life experienced such a lack of humanity. And I have had post traumatic stress issues ever since. Now that Maia will be starting school, I will finally have the chance to get some therapy and hopefully some closure. I have an appointment to see a gyn - first pap smear since Maia's birth! - and just thinking about it makes me break into sobs and vomit at the same time.

I am definitely going to contact Dr. Allen and see what he thinks...and also - Dr. O'leary will be at Camp next week so I will add this question to my list.

I'm bringing a BIG notebook with me! and will report back everything I learn.

-francine

oh yes... forgot to add that manually opening my cervix like that and starting the pushing process... when you do that your body doesn't STOP pushing... so I pushed for 5 1/2 hours!

((((((((((((((francine))))))))))))))
rape is what that sounds like to me

my cervix was also manually reduced while i had lacerations on my cervix no one has made mention that the two are related however i wonder now that so many of us have this condition in common it might be something to look into. if anyone knows about this please post i would like to get more information about this
thank

I started pushing at 8 cm. I pushed for 2 1/2 hours. It was a nightmare!

Sarah should not have had a BPI according to all the research. She was not a large baby, I am not obese, I did not gain a lot of weight while pregnant, I did not have gestational diabetes, I do not have a small pelvis...none of the risk factors pertained to me.

This could be very interesting if this comes to be true. I am anxiously awaiting what they say.

Cherie

I can only imagine the pain of being manually stretched (ripped) to 10 cm, OUCH!! However, I don't believe it's possible to push hard enough to exert the kind of pressure required to do nerve damage. Doesn't sound possible to me.