5 Comments

The story I’m sharing is about the after effects of the birth of my second child and the use of an antibiotic drip. The birth of my first son was I would say close to the worst experience of my life and well intended for another shared story but my second son was much improved but still ended in a caesarean and with him being rushed to SCBU and being on an antibiotic drip for several days.

I was trying desperately for a V-bac (vaginal birth after caesarean) and ended up going overdue again, waters broke with meconium (again) but this time I at least went into spontaneous labour. After 55 hours labour and only 3cm dilated we admitted defeat and headed off for the caesarean. He was healthy and I didn’t lose too much blood this time around but we were both put on an antibiotic drip as it was feared he had inhaled a bit of the meconium. Has this happened to other mums? I wasn’t asked if he could be put on antibiotic and asked repeatedly if it was necessary as I hated how he screamed each time they injected them and he had to keep the IV in the entire time. The all told me it was necessary and they had taken a blood sample to check for infection that would come back in a few days (surely this is a test that perhaps they could rush or check first??) and was told it was much safer for him to be treated in case of infection rather than letting him get sick and then treating.

He hated the IV, it got caught on things and hurt him, made breast feeding harder, made me feel massively like I had let me baby down and failed in some way and made him start to pull away from touch in fear of pain. It was heart breaking.

The tests came back a few days later saying “Great he had no infection” and I demanded the IV out immediately which they thankfully did but the experience was terrible both for me and definitely him and left a sour taste in my mouth at the seemingly unnecessary treatment. I understood the situation could have been worse had we done otherwise and there had been infection but surely the test isn’t that challenging that it takes a few days to get results. Putting a few hours old baby on antibiotics surely has bad side effects too!

My boy is now 10 months and very healthy and happy so it all had a happy ending but once again I was left feeling less than satisfied with the hospital experience and treatment. Any other Mum’s experienced similar situations?

---

Posted by merridee, 27th April 2013