Ebl??

You estimate because it's hard to measure exactly how much blood has been lost. Some blood is suctioned up and some is soaked up with gauze and sponges. So you are basically left estimating the blood loss which is absolutely better than nothing..........P.S: There is no norm for EBL. There are many contributing factors that can affect how much a patient will bleed.

Ah I see. Thanks!!

I was asking about the norm bc with my last child I know I lost around 250 cc (I think it's cc?) which I heard was a lot, but the MW said it was normal.

At our hospital, anything 400ml or under is considered to be within normal limits.

We were always ok with anything 300 and under and I've seen many doctors fudge the EBL at times. We had one birth where the mom pushed and pushed and pushed having obvious PDS with a big headed baby and the dr vacuumed the baby out leaving a hematoma on the woman's cervix. With all of the vaccum attempts (7 or 8!) there was blood everywhere and looked more like a murder scene than a birth. He said the EBL was 140 but my guess was that it was more like 400-500. She ended up being transfused 2 days later.

We estimate it in terms of 500. Most all of our pp orders include pp CBC's to ck H&H; one specifically says 'pp CBC if antepartum Hgb (I think 500)'

I was asking about the norm bc with my last child I know I lost around 250 cc (I think it's cc?) which I heard was a lot, but the MW said it was normal.

250cc is one cup, I'd say very normal.

As the others have said, yeah we and the Docs estimate but after awhile you get pretty accurate. Remember 1 cc = 1 gram. In the beginning I would get a chux then pour some water on it to get an idea of how much so many cc's looked like on the chux. Use a speci cup or whatever so you know how much you are putting on there. Of course you can weigh chux ect on the baby scale, 1cc bld/clot = 1 gram.

And yeah...some Doc's do fudge. It seems like they take blood loss as a personal insult just like poor apgars.