Childbirth In Your Life and Around the World My childbirth Experience

Childbirth In Your Life and Around the World

My childbirth Experience

I was pregnant with our third child, at the time I did not know I was pregnant because although all the signs were there that I was pregnant, my menstruation continued.

I went to the Doctor and at twelve weeks I was told that I was pregnant but the nature of the pregnancy one or two things are likely to happen. 1. The baby could be born with down's syndrome or 2.  Spinal bifida (meaning paralyzed from the waist down). But the jury was still out because that is not what God said.

My husband had just joined the military and would be leaving for basic training in a matter of weeks. At the time we were living in Orlando Fl. And the Doctor who delivered my first two children was located in Fort Lauderdale, so I decided to move back to Fort Lauderdale to be under the care of my primary obgyn, who was a God fearing Doctor. He explain to me that what was going on, placenta pre-via a condition in which the placenta partially or wholly blocks the neck of the uterus, thus interfering with normal delivery of a baby. Hemorrhaging was the main concern.  

Every trimester I was in the hospital do to bleeding. The day of the deliver, a planned C-section, I was not put to sleep but had an epidural, as crazy as it sounds, I could feel burning really bad, it was to initial cut that I felt. The Doctor order to stop and ask if I could feel that, I replied yes, it burns. They rotated the table at a 45* angle and waited, then proceed with the surgery.

To make a long story short, my son was delivered 6lbs. 8oz, I did not hear him cry as they quickly took him to nicu.   

The only thing I remember saying was how tired I was and that I wanted to sleep, not knowing that I was hemorrhaging, I received four units of blood and six units of platelets.  It was by  God grace that I lived and not died.

I decided to compare Placenta pre-via: its relationship with race and the country of origin among Asian women.

OBJECTIVES:

To examine the association between placenta pre-via with maternal race and its variations by country of origin among Asian women.

STUDY DESIGN:

Retrospective cohort study.

METHODS:

We analyzed data from a population-based retrospective cohort study of 16,751,627 pregnancies in the US. The data were derived from the national linked birth/infant mortality database for the period 1995-2000. Multiple logistic regressions were used to describe the relationship between placenta pre-via and race as well as country of origin among Asian women.

RESULTS:

About 3.3 per 1,000 pregnancies were complicated with placenta pre-via among white women, while the corresponding figures for black women and women of other races were 3.0 and 4.5 per 1,000 pregnancies, respectively. The excess risk remained substantial and significant after adjustment for confounders for women of other races compared to white women. The frequencies of placenta pre-via among Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Asian Indian, Korean, Vietnamese and other Asian or Pacific Islander were 5.6, 5.1, 7.6, 4.5, 5.9, 4.4 and 4.4 per 1,000 pregnancies, respectively. The adjusted odds ratios ranged from 1.39 to 2.15 among Asian women by country of origin, with the lowest for Japanese and Vietnamese and the highest for Filipino women in our study.

CONCLUSION:

Asian women have excess risk of placenta pre-via compared with white women. Major variation exists in placenta pre-via risk among Asian women, with the lowest risk in Japanese and Vietnamese women and the highest risk in Filipino women.

Reference:

 Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand. 2008;87(6):612-6. doi: 10.1080/00016340802071037. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18568460