What's your most interesting/scary case?

[LizzyL&DRN]

We all know that working in this field can be exciting, touching, heart warming as well as heart wrenching. We know that strange and exciting things happen everyday. But every now and then something really strange, very scary and/or rare occurs. I think this might be a good opportunity to learn from other's about their most strange/interesting/scary experience. I have two:

1. Primip, uncomplicated term pregnancy, had good PNC. Came into triage in labor, 4cm I think, intact membranes, good strong ucs. Pt admitted, 0 epidural, got to C/C/+2 station, doc was called to come for delivery. MD showed up and ruptured membranes......BLACKish/Brownish fluid came out. Baby born in severe respiratory distress, transferred to NICU. Infant dx with severe Primary Pulmonary Hypertension and the baby died. Apparently the OB theorized that several days prior to delivery a blood vessel on the fetal side of the placenta broke and bled into the amniotic fluid. The infants lungs and stomach filled with this old bloody fluid and the infant was unable to be ventilated. Very sad case.

2. Multip, 37 weeks, good PNC, had numerous ultrasounds due to absent fetal movement on the ultrasound however everything else looked good except mom had bigtime polyhydramnios. AFI 59:uhoh3: , for the life of me I can't figure out why she wasn't admitted at 36 weeks(UH...hello doctor, isn't this a prolapsed cord or abruption waiting to happen???:smackingf ). Anyway she came in soaked from her waist down and in a lot of pain, EFM applied (baby looked good), 3 cm dilated. All of a sudden she had a complete abruption, blood pouring out, baby heart rate plummeted. Mom rushed to OR, not even an IV yet. Mom was crash sectioned, baby came out dead, but resucitated. Baby had neurological defects, no movment, no swallowing(hence all the fluid). I don't think the baby made it. It was so scary and sad for the family because they walked in and 11 min later baby was delivered, they didn't speak english and the only spanish speaking person on the floor was in the OR already. They had no clue what was going on.

[EmerNurse, BSN, RN]

Yes. For some reason ER doesn't get the baby thing very well. I haven't seen our's go so far as to bag a pink baby, but they don't keep them warm very well.

I did go down once to find them intubating bad baby between mom's legs with a warmer sitting 3 feet from them. However, considering that the cord was still pulsing, and the placenta can remove CO2 that we can't do with bagging alone (reducing the risk of brain damage) this was probably not all bad. I did promptly move the baby to the warmer when they cut the cord.

Now hang on thar hoss! I delivered a baby in the hospital hall way on the way rushing a woman to L&D. Yes I held baby down a tad to help clear her airway (no bulb suction in my pocket sorry), yes I stimulated and rubbed her back and yep she howled, and yes I wrapped her as best I could in a sheet for warmth, holding the baby bettween mom's legs cause she was still very much attached to mom, all while running down the hall with a freaked out security guard and an (excellent) tech pushing the stretcher!

Mom and baby were fine and L&D said we all did very good. We thought the baby should be named Holly (HALLWAY). Not all ER nurses are afraid of babies LOL.

Ok - I've had 4 so I may have had a little idea of what to expect LOL.

[SmilingBluEyes]

Got code pinked to a delivery one night. Shoulder dystocia, stunned baby. As we blew in the door we saw the ob resident doing mouth to mouth on the baby......

[fusster]

My sister has three children. All her pregnancies went fine until it was time to deliver. First one she was in labor for over 30 hours and pushed for 5 hours, and then her baby's heart rate started decreasing. At this point the doctor was finally called into the room (yes, after pushing for 5 hours and the baby pulling back to where it started after every push), discovered that the baby's head was tilted funny, used a vacuum to pull the baby out and then found out that the cord was wrapped around her baby's neck twice. This baby ended up in the NICU for several days.

Second baby was born with fluid in his lungs (meconium perhaps?), developed pheumonia, was in the NICU for a week.

Third baby she had a placental abruption, husband rushed her to the ER, was transferred up to the maternity unit for about a half an hour before the doctors/nurses decided it was an abruption (I guess the huge pool of blood she was sitting in wasn't a big enough hint), and then went for an emergency C/S. Ended up having to get blood transfusions. This baby was in the NICU for only a few days.

Luckily all her babies have turned out fine, no long term effects. Needless to say her husband went in for a vasectomy after the last one.

[OB_or_NICU_hopeful]

...........Needless to say her husband went in for a vasectomy after the last one.

I would imagine!! How scary to have a complication all three times.

[BSNtobe2009]

To those of you that work L&D, I have a question.

Like alot of pre-nursing students, I'm addicted to all of the health shows (the real ones, not the fictional dramas).

Now, I know that they don't necessarily show everything on these shows, and some of it is dramatized, but I see way too many cases on there where women who have high-risk pregnancies for a menu list of reasons, and the narrator is always saying, "..if labor doesn't progress quickly, the mother and the baby (insert horror story here)" or something to that effect.

My question, is why are these women not given a C-section if their progressing their labors are that risky?

I don't know if I was dropped on my head as a child or what, but all I remember telling my doctors was whatever you have to do to make sure my baby survives, do it, I didn't care about a surgery, a scar, pain, anything.