Hello again,

Today I wanted to continue on with C – Sections and the standard routine for them.

The following may occur if you have a planned C – Section. The doctors usually schedule you at 38-39 weeks, before you’d go into labor. On the day of your surgery, you’d have had nothing to eat since midnight the night before. You would arrive about 2 hours prior to surgery time. As you arrive to the hospital, the nurse will start fetal monitoring. The next thing they do is make sure surgical and anesthetic consents are signed. Sometimes people sign them at the doctors office prior to surgery.

The nurse then starts your IV and gets your labs drawn, CBC or Complete Blood Count, and type/cross, which are standard for most hospitals. You then get a clipper shave fo the lower abdomen down to the pubic bone, and the nurse inserts a catheter into your bladder. Sometimes doctors can let you wait until your spinal has been placed before the catheter, to make it a painless procedure. You’ll have to discuss this with your doctor beforehand.

Then you’ll go to the OR, and sit up for your spinal anesthetic. The anesthesiologist injects with a combination of numbing meds with longer acting narcotics. Then the nurse will help you lay down quickly so the spinal works properly. You are then draped with a sterile drape, have a blood pressure cuff and EKG leach attatched and an electrocautery grounding pad attatched.

Then the surgery begins. The doctors usually do a low transverse or ” Bikini Cut ” incision on skin and uterus. Just a few minutes after they the start, the baby is born, followed by manual removal of the placenta. The longest part of the surgery is after the birth, as the surgeon has to repair each layer as they close up your incisions, skin, fat, fascia, muscle ( which is separated not cut ) and the uterus. Usually doctors use dissolveable below the skin sutures to close the skin with steri strips. After surgery you are in recovery for 1-2 hrs., then to your postpartum room.

My next entry will cover the recovery and differences for vaginal versus C – Section delivery. As always, thanks for taking part in this discussion and offering your experiences.

God bless,

Meredith – RNC