Fetal death after maternal death

crissrn27, RN · Feb 21, 2007

we had a 33 weeker come in ER with cpr in progress, she had probably been down over an hour and u/s showed no FHT but the OB crash sect. her anyway. Needless to say neither survived. Turns out she had a PE and had prob. been down awhile before EMS got there and no family members started CPR or anything. I asked the OB after this how long the baby had after mother codes and he said around 5 min.

2curlygirls · Feb 23, 2007

I too have wondered this. We recently had a mom in ICU d/t metastatic pancreatic cancer who was DNR and 27 weeks pg. They were supposed to section the baby at some point prior to mom's demise but I could never figure out how they would make that call. We were on alert for a week.

Finally they sectioned mom and she made a miraculous recovery. Yay! Who knows what her untimate outcome will be but at least she got to spend some time with her baby!

crabbynurse · Feb 25, 2007

I've only seen one crash c/s result in a live baby, when the mom died. The mom threw an AFE when the OB broke her water. We got the baby out in less than 5 minutes and she did well.

I've seen 3 or 4 other crash c/s when mom died that all resulted in fetal death as well. In those cases, the c/s occured greater than 5 minutes after the moms coded.

I've never seen a situation in which a mom coded and a crash section was not done to try to save the baby.

Morning-glory · Feb 25, 2007

Back in 1953, my aunt got polio. A few years earlier she had had a head injury from being thrown from her horse, the virus got into her brain. She became paralized very quickly and was put in an iron lung. She died the next day. She had been 8 months pregnant. According to the family story, it took them 20 minutes to get the baby out post mortem because they had to get her out of this huge contraption. My cousin had a year of sleep apnea and had to be monitored 24/7. My uncle, dad and grandmother all took shifts. She has lived to live a normal life and now has grandchildren of her own. It is our own family miracle.

KellNY, RN · Feb 25, 2007

You're saying that the fetus was without oxygen for 20 minutes and not only survived, but lived a productive, relatively healthy life?

Morning-glory · Feb 26, 2007

Yup!

Then again, it is a family story and no one in the family was actually in the room, but my aunt did die of polio, and the baby was taken out post mortem. But again, my other uncle (her brother in law) was a pathologist and he saw the report of her death and the birth of the baby. Maybe the iron lung had some CPR-like movements that kept her blood moving as it was a system that mechanically expanded and deflated the lungs. I've never seen an iron lung so I don't know. She was very pregnant so maybe the pressure was applied to her chest. I'll have to look it up.

Morning-glory · Feb 26, 2007

http://americanhistory.si.edu/polio/howpolio/ironlung.htm

So I think there must have been something to the pressure applied at 15 breaths per minute to her chest that keep the blood going.

DutchgirlRN, ASN, RN · Feb 26, 2007

An elderly patient told me about her sister who died when she was somewhere around 7 months pregnant. The sister bled to death. While cleaning her up they found that the baby had delievered and was alive. They cut the cord and put her in the oven with the door left open to keep her warm. No medical care was available for miles. This miracle baby lives a normal healthy life. Still alive today as a grandmother!

mgalloLPN · Jan 8, 2008

An elderly patient told me about her sister who died when she was somewhere around 7 months pregnant. The sister bled to death. While cleaning her up they found that the baby had delievered and was alive. They cut the cord and put her in the oven with the door left open to keep her warm. No medical care was available for miles. This miracle baby lives a normal healthy life. Still alive today as a grandmother!

They put the baby in an oven? What kind of oven?

Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP · Jan 8, 2008

They put the baby in an oven? What kind of oven?

Probably a regular oven. My guess is that the heat was on relatively low and they wrapped the baby up before putting him/her in there. I've heard other similar stories of kids born a little preemie before the days of hospital births and NICUs. Kind of a primitive isolette, if you will.

mugwump · Jan 12, 2008

ALIVE IN 5. you code the mom for 4 minutes. (the nurse times it) at 4 minutes a perimortem c/section is done. Some times they both make it sometimes they both dont but if the baby is not gotton out it will surely die. A perimortem c/section can also potentially save th e mom due to the fluid shift of the delivery.

birdgardner · Apr 1, 2008

They put the baby in an oven? What kind of oven?

Ovens used to have pilot lights - 85 or 90 degrees in there with the door closed or nearly so - good for rising dough.