Labor ward

Tuesday and part of Wednesday I went to the Labor ward. In the morning there is a consultant there and they do ward rounds. This is where the consultant has the medical students go around to each patient and read their charts and come up with what the plan should be. Most women were in active labor so most of the plans where do a VE (vaginal examination) and monitor labor progress. Some women who have had no progress in labor for hours, such as they have stayed at the same dilation for over 3 hours they Are put on a list for an emergency C section. There are many c/s done here. The consultant says it is better to take them to c section than risk the baby and have that risk on you. I could not go yet to see the procedure until my letter from the chief came in. 

On Tuesday after ward rounds all morning an hour before I left a woman came in from another clinic and was severely bleeding and they had lost the fetal heart rate. I believe when this occurs in the States or the UK, as the two midwives here told me, they would take her straight to Surgery and do a C/S. however the doctor had to take blood samples and after 20 minutes of her being there in the ward the doctor decided to do a speculum. As he was positioning her and removed the gauze and placed her feet in stirrups, she had an  ante partum hemorrhage. The blood and amniotic fluid went all over the floor and the woman was screaming. As the doctor did the speculum and used gauze to pull out the clots and blood out of the vagina to see cervix he determined it was an abruption. This was because the placenta had detached from the uterine wall. I had to leave after the speculum but asked the following day and she had a delivery but the baby was a still born. 

I have yet to see an actually birth yet, all the women were in active labor but not close enough to actually deliver. I hope to come back and see and vaginal birth and a c/s. I am going to minor theater for surgery later this week and the male medical ward.