Guest post: Christine's homebirth w/ cord wrapped 4 times

Christine read this post I wrote about nuchal cord (cord wrapped around baby's neck) not being an emergency in births. She wrote me an email and graciously gave me her amazing birth story and photo to share with my readers.




I loved and appreciated reading this today. I gave birth to a baby boy 5 months ago, at home (my 4th baby - 4th home birth). His cord was wrapped around his neck 4 times. He also had heart decels toward the end of my labor - scary heart decels, and my midwife at one point told me "Okay, it's time to get this baby OUT!" She turned up the doppler (I was in water) so that I could hear the heart tones in an attempt to get me to deliver sooner, than later. Both midwives and myself were starting to get slightly alarmed. The decels went away as soon as the contraction ended, so we suspected it was a cord compression issue based on that alone. I wish I could post a photo here as well, because I have a GREAT one, of me standing up in the birth tub to switch positions, as you mentioned, to get the baby in a better position.

I actually caught the baby myself, which brought a whole new level of empowerment into my realm! What a pleasure that was! But back to that cord - how surprised we were to discover a 4 x nuchal cord! And obviously, thinking of the above scenario about the man and his wife's birth story, there was no pitocin, epidural, lithotomy, episiotomy etc going on since ours was a home birth with an (experienced) lay midwife.

Being a 4th time home birthing mother/family, we were never so grateful for the option of home birth and midwives after this experience. Our baby was also born SGA, and I know without a shadow of a doubt, that if we had been under OB care, I would have been heavily and constantly monitored for the small size, and no doubt ultrasounds would have detected that nuchal cord, which I'm quite sure would have robbed me from a mere trial of labor and I would have been sent straight to the OR. Yet, here I can sit now and can say that my baby was born safely at home, in the water, with his cord wrapped 4 times around his neck and he's a live, well, healthy and normal 5 month old baby today!


Thanks for allowing me to share!

Christine

Here is the photo I mentioned. This is me in transition, standing up and elevating one leg at a time in an attempt to alleviate cord pressure from my unborn baby who was having heart decels and was born with a 4 x nuchal cord - still, safely at home!


 

******** graphic birth photo below*******************









***********graphic birth photo below****************

Christine changing positions to help her baby's heart tones.

Above: Christine caught her own baby!

Above: Christine's midwife measuring her son's umbilical cord. It was 3 ft long!