Update to the Update

Kim is wonderful as many of you know but she has a flare for the understatement. Nathan's pulse did drop when she pushed, and he did have a cord wrapped around his neck. It's normal to have a cord around the neck, I'd say about 50% of the kids I've delivered have them. It's also normal to have the pulse drop a little when your pushing. It's usually a vagal (autonomic nervous system) response to compression of the baby's head in the birth canal (early decels) or mild cord compression (variable decels) that look like this.
Indeed that is where Kim started when the delivery started really progressing. What isn't normal however is for those decelerations to really tank. This is where kim was when the forceps came out. Just for those of you out there familiar with how controversial forceps have become who might have been thinking, "well my baby's HR dropped and I didn't need forceps." (Not that any of our fine friends would be judgmental.)


Anyway needless to say I was grateful for forceps and the expediting of this delivery because in less skillful hands Kim would have gone to section, limiting the number of future pregnancies we could have, or Nathan could have suffered severe consequences.