Monday, March 31, 2014

Making childbirth a horror

(The snaps in this post could be repulsive to many. Viewer discretion advised)

Last week, we had one of the worst rupture uteri we've ever seen. Worst in the sense that it was quite repulsive when we got the history. 

SS, a 30 year old lady with no living issue had become pregnant the third time. As with her previous two pregnancies, she had thought that she would deliver without any problem at home. Her previous two babies were born at home but died before they attained the ages of five.

However, the progress of labour in the third pregnancy was eventful. The baby just refused to come down as the previous two had come. The family sensing that something was wrong took her to the nearby government health centre. There was no doctor or nurse at the place. 

Someone suggested a 'reliable quack'. 

The quack gave her two injection and started to applied pressure with his bare hands on her bulging tummy. He was trying to somehow push the baby out of the uterus. He had not even done a per vaginal examination. After about half an hour of applying pressure on the abdomen, she felt something give way. 

But, there was no baby. The tummy still looked swollen. The labour pain had disappeared. But she started to feel quite nauseated and sick. By this time, one of her relatives who was a Sahiya had turned up. She realised that something had gone wrong. 

It was around evening when the family reached NJH with SS. As always, the diagnosis was quite easy . . . a rupture uterus . . . 

Snaps of the surgery and how it looked . . . A grim reminder of how archaic obstetric care remains for quite a lot of our fellow citizens . . .

Tried to get a snap of the abdominal contour in a rupture uterus.
There is fullness of the suprapubic and the epigastric regions. 

The surgical team led by Dr. Shishir . . . 

The baby appears like he's sleeping . . . 

The aftermath of the violent abdominal massage . . . 

The uterine rent well sutured . . .


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