Babies cut during c-sections?

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I'd really love to go into L&D nursing. I have a friend who is a NICU nurse but floats to L&D when needed. She was telling me that she was a c-section the other day where the baby's head was cut (not serious but still a cut). She felt so bad because the baby was screaming. No one told the parents who were looking so dazed at their screaming baby after all the commotion of getting sent in for a c-section. She told me it's not that uncommon. I was wondering what everyone's else's experiences were. Maybe I'd be better off thinking about the post partum units.... for some reason, the thought of that really bothers me. Should she have been the one to tell the parents?

My boyfriend was also cut when he was born. Right on the head and you can see the scar, it is about an inch long and no hair growing from it. Kinda cute though.:chuckle

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I agree with the previous posters, I've never seen anything beyond "owie" marks from the forceps and we do tend to use them a fair amount. Ideally they should only be used to give mom a little assistance when pushing, not to literally drag the kiddo out with force.

P_RN: That must've been one heck of an injury :o , how bad did it look at birth?

SG

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Specializes in NICU.
What about forceps injuries? Do they even use forceps any more? My 38 y/o daughter still has a faint but large cheek scar. It never "went away".

We had a baby come to our NICU before and after surgery when he was a few hours old. The forceps almost tore his ear completely off.

As far as the cut during the c-section, I've seen that a few times over the years as well. It's usually during a crash section where they need to get the baby out NOW and maybe the doctor was a little too aggressive with the scalpel. One time we had one that plastics had to sew up, a couple others just needed steri-strips, and most just needed Bacitricin to the site until it healed. The bright side is that scalpels are so sharp that the cut is almost always very very thin and heals without much scarring at all.

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Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.

I've never worked L&D, but have seen lots of babies; I think I've seen one cut from a c-section and it was nothing major. I had two sections myself and neither one had a cut.

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What about forceps injuries? Do they even use forceps any more? My 38 y/o daughter still has a faint but large cheek scar. It never "went away".

I've seen more vacuum extractions that forceps. VE can leave some pretty nasty looking marks. Nasty, but not serious or complicating the situation. Most go down in a few days from what I've seen.

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Specializes in ICU,ER.

My one year old still has 2 scars on her back from getting cut during the C-section. It's really no big deal. She is healthy as a horse and I'm sure she doesn't remember it a bit.:)

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Specializes in ICU,ER.
My 21 year old son was cut one the scalp during a c-section. The doc made the initial incision to lift the uterus up to finish cutting and caught him on the scalp above his left ear. The scar still shows today since he wears his hair cut short. The OB doc was the one to sew him up at that time, and we figured the scar would never be seen.

Pam

Hey Pam,

Was it Dr. J ?

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I didn't ask my friend specifically but she made it sound like it was a fairly minor cut. She also wasn't trying to say it happens all the time but it's one of those things that does happen. I have to imagine that if it was serious, the parents would have noticed. I love the idea of L&D so I'm not sure why that bothers me so much!!!

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

Have seen it like twice in 9 years. Both, times, emergent/stat sections.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Matt still has a slight scar on his face from getting cut during his mom's c-section.

I've seen it once in 2 years, and it was during a stat.

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I have seen it happen once and like alot of others it was during a stat section, was also the only time I ever witnessed a prolapsed cord, and from prolapse in LR to delivery in OR it took a whole 7 minutes, and I believe that the rush to make sure the baby was born HEALTHY was worth the stitches to the scalp....

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Specializes in ICU,ER.

Wow.

I didn't realize that it was that uncommon. Most of you are saying only once or twice in many years and then most of those were emergency sections. As far as I know, mine was pretty uneventful.

Ana has two pretty good sized (a couple of inches) scars on her back that are still very noticable after a year.

Oh well, like I said..... she is healthy and perfect in every other way...=)

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