Hi Di and everyone, About 18 months ago we (my midwifery partner) and I birthed with a woman who laboured at home, and during obvious second stage, declared that something was wrong, and that she needed to go the the hospital. On examination prior to transfer, we could detect nothing wrong. On arrival to the hospital the exam found the same results and the lovely Ob that we had as back up encouraged her to get up and give birth, which she did. Never one decel, never one moment of doubt on any of our parts that she could birth brilliantly, and that she and the baby were fine. Her baby was born shortly after we arrived, and was extremely flaccid, took some time to breathe intially, and was then in need of O2 and stimulation to keep him breathing. We were all shocked. He went to the NICU and later the next day we were told that both mum and baby had very low sodium levels, hence his slow start to life. Never found out the cause, although there were many in the hospital that were quick to blame the fact that she had been labouring at home for 18 hours or so, and that this must have had something to do with it...
A few weeks later I remember reading something about hyponatraemia being related to excessive water consumption in labour, I think it was in MIDIRS, but I can't lay my hands on it at the moment. This woman did indeed drink large amounts of water, and spent considerable time in the birthing pool, with the temperature being closely monitored. I'm not convinced that she drank enough in that relatively short time to deplete her body of sodium, and pass the depletion onto her son. Anyway, that's my experience with the low sodium thing. The woman had a drip put up, and it seemed to resolve, although they were saying that she didn't have bloods late in pregnancy and so that might have been picked up if she had (another stab at her plans to birth at home). Who knows. Baby, whilst flat and hypotonic for a few days, picked up quickly and is now an extremely bright nearly 2 year old. Cheers Tania -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
