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How is the delivery of a child affected by the mother’s spinal cord injury? - Diane M. Rowles, MS, NP

How is the delivery of a child affected by the mother’s spinal cord injury?

Diane M. Rowles, MS, NP

Nurse Practitioner, Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Program, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago

Read Bio More Videos by Diane M. Rowles
Transcript
Women with spinal cord injury do have more, as I said, more c-sections, they also have more vacuum and forceps deliveries. Now they can push, it’s not the same kind of pushing, because a lot of times they don’t have the abdominal push, th... Show More

Women with spinal cord injury do have more, as I said, more c-sections, they also have more vacuum and forceps deliveries. Now they can push, it’s not the same kind of pushing, because a lot of times they don’t have the abdominal push, they don’t have all of that. But they can do what we call a valsalva, which is still a pushing, may not be adequate for delivering the baby, and that’s why a lot of times assistance is needed to get the baby through the birth canal. What about people with low injuries, where they don’t have any sensation below their level of injury. We have to be careful with those women because they can wake up from a sleep in labor and not know it, because they don’t have sensation, and their body is not going dysreflexic. So those women we have to be careful that they watch for labor, because they can wake up in the middle of labor and not know that they were in labor, because it might not wake them up. So we have to be careful to watch for an unwitnessed birth for them. Not common, but that’s what we watch for.

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How is the delivery of a child affected by the mother’s spinal cord injury?

Diane M. Rowles, MS, NP

Nurse Practitioner, Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Program, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago

More Videos by Diane M. Rowles
Transcriptadd

Women with spinal cord injury do have more, as I said, more c-sections, they also have more vacuum and forceps deliveries. Now they can push, it’s not the same kind of pushing, because a lot of times they don’t have the abdominal push, they don’t have all of that. But they can do what we call a valsalva, which is still a pushing, may not be adequate for delivering the baby, and that’s why a lot of times assistance is needed to get the baby through the birth canal. What about people with low injuries, where they don’t have any sensation below their level of injury. We have to be careful with those women because they can wake up from a sleep in labor and not know it, because they don’t have sensation, and their body is not going dysreflexic. So those women we have to be careful that they watch for labor, because they can wake up in the middle of labor and not know that they were in labor, because it might not wake them up. So we have to be careful to watch for an unwitnessed birth for them. Not common, but that’s what we watch for.

How is the delivery of a child affected by the mother’s spinal cord injury?
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