Delayed C-Section Risks: What You Need to Know

Heidi Wickstrom:
Sometimes during a delivery, a C-section becomes necessary, and that's a cesarean section. Many of us may be familiar with cesarean sections. That's basically removing the baby from mom's uterus through mom's abdomen, as opposed to the baby passing through the birth canal and being delivered vaginally. There's a number of circumstances that can lead to the necessity for a C-section, some of them being that baby is not progressing through the birth canal. Baby's maybe too high up in the birth canal, hasn't engaged to actually progress through with contractions to be delivered vaginally. Sometimes mom is in labor too long, and the obstetrician starts to get concerned that it's taking a long time, and it may just be safer to take baby out via C-section as opposed to delivering through the birth canal. Then there's more emergent issues. For example, if mom had something called a placental abruption, where the placenta, which is the organ between mom and baby, where they exchange nutrients and blood, if the placenta becomes dislodged from the uterus, that would be a time when you'd need an emergency C-section, or if the cord is wrapped around baby's neck, or the cord actually progresses out of the birth canal first and the baby is still in the birth canal.

These are some examples of a time when you would need a C-section. Some other times that a C-section may be necessary, that baby isn't as dramatic, is if they can tell from monitoring the baby, that baby is maybe under a little bit of distress. So the baby's heart rate is dropping, or mom is contracting too frequently and putting a lot of stress on the baby. And at that point, it just becomes necessary to progress to a C-section as opposed to vaginal delivery.