Update: This powerhouse of a woman has since started the non-profit organization “Hope for Accreta Foundation.”

What a miracle this woman survived!  This was her fifth baby and fourth cesarean.

She had a complication known as placenta percreta which is when “the placenta attaches itself and grows through the uterus, sometimes extending to nearby organs, such as the bladder” (March of Dimes 2012).  The risk of having placenta accreta, increta, or percreta during a fourth cesarean or a VBA3C (vaginal birth after three cesareans) is 2.13% (1 in 47) (Silver 2006).

Image credit: Wikipedia

Most women planning a VBA1C (vaginal birth after one cesarean) are aware of the risks of uterine rupture.  However, women planning their first vaginal birth or VBA1C need the WHOLE picture so they can really work to prevent an unnecessary cesarean.  They need to understand the risks and benefits of VBAC versus repeat cesarean for mom and baby now as well as how current choices impact mom’s future health, fertility, delivery options, and complications that present in subsequent births.

A huge part of this – I believe – is hiring a vaginal birth/VBAC supportive care provider because once a woman has that first cesarean, her options narrow, and they do so even more drastically after that second cesarean.  As her options narrow, her risks increase and unlike uterine rupture which you can circumvent through a repeat cesarean, the risk of accreta, percreta, and increta are not as easily mitigated.

By avoiding one complication, we are increasing our risk for another serious complication in future pregnancies.  For women who plan for large families, this should be on your radar and every practitioner should be discussing intended family size with their patients so that it can be taken into consideration.

Read more about placenta abnormalities, the risks of multiple cesarean sections, the marketing of risk, and how reversing VBAC bans would make birth safer for everyone.

And please donate blood. These women need it.

Woman survives crisis delivery with 33 gallons of donated blood

Posted on April 11, 2012 at 9:46 PM

SAN ANTONIO — University Hospital is sharing an incredible story of survival. A San Antonio woman was saved during a crisis baby delivery. But it took more than 33 gallons of blood.

Two-month-old Addison Walker came into the world in an unusual way. Her mother, Gina, had a rare pregnancy condition called placenta percreta. The placenta invaded through the uterine wall into the bladder, causing massive bleeding during a delivery operation.

Doctors at University Hospital recalled the February eight-hour operation.

“Unfortunately, Ms. Walker had blood loss that superseded anything that we could have prepared for,” said Dr. Jason Parker, U.T. Health Science Center OB/GYN.

Walker lost more than ten times the amount of blood surgeons anticipated. She needed more than 33 gallons. That’s 540 units to keep her alive.

“After I watched cooler after cooler after cooler with my wife’s name on it full of blood going up and down the hallways, yeah, I did get worried,” recalled Gina’s husband Dustin. Read more.

A couple comments left on Facebook:

University is a Level 1 trauma center.  It is the trauma center in San Antonio.  Only other hospital that takes the worst of the worst is SAMMC [San Antonio Military Medical Center] which is the military hospital.  University takes all the gunshots, stabbings, multiple injury accidents, etc…. And these come in multiple times a day.  If any hospital has 100+ units on hand it would be that hospital.  Even if it didn’t, it is literally a couple hundred yards from a half dozen other hospitals that could dip into their supply.

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It’s approx $1060 per unit of blood from the blood bank, not including the one time cost of all the testing, which is about $400-500. (These costs depend on the facility, but are a ball park.) Think about what the cost of the blood alone was…

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I laboured just fine with my attempted VBA3C but the labour pains at the end were intense and I needed some meds of sorts so I went off to the hospital only to be bullied into the surgery room. All stats were excellent with me and my baby (and noted by the doctors in surgery that my little girl was down the birth canal and had I only been given something to help with pain, I would have pushed her out just fine). Because of that unnecessarian I had to endure a 6 hour reconstructive surgery to fix the mistakes of all the other batched c-sections and to repair the fistula left by the 4th C. But in the meantime I got the pleasure of toting around a catheter for the 5 months in between surgeries. That’s on top of the other procedures, tests and pain I had to go through. All of this could have been avoided had the doctors not allowed me that very first c-section and all the others that were not required. I kick myself in the butt for not educating myself right from the beginning, but how was I to know the doctors wouldn’t be educated either!

I desire to go on to have more children, but am terrified for things like this article speaks of.