What Are the Risks of a Forceps Delivery? | FAQ

Heidi Wickstrom:
Sometimes there becomes a need during a delivery for forceps, and many of you are maybe wondering what forceps are. So forceps are usually a metal tool that's used to actually grab the baby's head and assist in getting the baby out of the birth canal and delivered. Forceps become necessary when there's any sort of reason that the baby is not coming out in a timely fashion. So mom may have been pushing for a long time and she's getting tired and can't push anymore, but baby's getting close to actually exiting the canal, so they might need a little help, or the baby could be in some form of distress, so they need to get the baby out as quickly as possible. Sometimes forceps come along with some risks. However, because it's a tool that's grasping around the head and the neck part of the baby, there can be a possibility of a skull fracture, of nerve injury, of a hematoma, so that's bruising or some cut to the baby, and then in worst case scenarios, brain damage. You generally would not use forceps unless it becomes absolutely necessary to do it. Like I said, if the baby is not progressing through the actual canal, but they're close to coming out, like to a point where you don't want to move to a C-section, and it just provides a little bit of help, or mom is in some situation where she can't push the baby out, but baby is pretty close to coming out, so they'd use a little bit of help to extract the baby.