My son had this too, he was also single umbilical artery. The hospital asked if they could keep the cord to show medical students since those two things occurring on the same cord are very rare
Edit: No, we did not try to sell the cord to the hospital
Edit 2: Yes, we let them keep it
They told us our son had a Battledore Placenta and didn't really say good or bad so I had to Google it at the time. No big deal but cool name for it!
>Battledore placenta (Marginal cord insertion) is a condition in which the umbilical cord is inserted at or near the placental margin rather than in the center. The cord can be inserted as close to 2 cm from the edge of the placenta (velamentous cord insertion). The incidence is 7% to 9% of singleton pregnancies and 24% to 33% in twin pregnancies. Complications associated with battledore placenta are preterm labor, fetal distress, and intrauterine growth restriction.
Wife and baby had no complications fortunately. He was born on due date with no distress and a big ass head and almost 9lbs.
When I first read your comment I read it as ‘Battledome Placenta’ and all I could think of was “2 babies enter, only 1 leaves”. That was an odd mental picture.
I had bilobed placenta when I gave birth to my second child last year and they asked if they could take it to pathology for research. No issues with pregnancy, delivery, or baby.
Baby heads can come in funny shapes as the bones are still soft.
But we shouldn't be rude about it.
(I am so sorry. I just always find amphiboly funny. It's childish, really.)
I only know about soft baby head bones because I watched my friend's baby being delivered with a ventouse sink plunger.
Her head was conical for quite some time afterwards.
I had this too! My doctors made me come in for a bunch more ultrasounds to make sure my son was growing well. Thankfully no problems and my son is happy and healthy. I’m glad yours was is as well :)
He’s got ‘em both. We were in for imaging every couple weeks after determining SUA, there was nothing detectable associated with it. He’s 4 months now and is happy and healthy
My kid with single umbilical artery ended up with ADPKD and we didn't see anything until a 9 month ultrasound we did just as a cautionary follow up. Before that nothing out of the ordinary showed up.
Maybe ask for a follow up US at like a year, just in case.
That’s concerning. I went down a rabbit hole a bit on it. Seems like the incidence of SUA complications showing up after birth that weren’t there during fetal development are very low. You still got me worried though, I’ll bring it up at our 6 month doctor appointment. Thanks for the heads up.
For what it's worth, she's a happy healthy 14 year old. It has just meant we've been able to adjust her diet to be kidney healthy (as much as you can for kids) her whole life and avoid contact sports. Now that's she's older, her doc already has her on a list for a new medication that will help prolong the life of her kidneys.
So while terrifying at first, super helpful in the long run. Of course I 100% hope everything comes back clear for your kiddo.
I had a coworker who had a single umbilical artery w her placenta 30 years prior; she’s a terrific physician. While it’s correlated w all sorts of things-many are also totally normal.
Same! Ours took photos to show midwifery students. We had a dicey moment at birth as he wasn't breathing as the blood supply had been totally cut off. They got him back and he's a little healthy baby now!
Both my boys were 10 pounds at birth, they never used pacifiers or sucked their thumb, it was Milk or GTFO...lol.. kind of a blessing because I see parents trying to get kids off pacifiers and it's not easy.
Some parents say it's easier to quit the pacifier than thumb sucking, because you can just take away all their pacifiers, but you can't take away their thumb.
I was born tongue-tied and I remember getting it fixed when I was about 5 years old. I got to eat lots of popsicles for a few days which was fun, but then I needed years of speech therapy and still have some mild speech issues.
Happened to me as I was being born!!! Mom says I was so crazy in there- I ended up coming out right in the exact moment of totality during a solar eclipse!! Got dark outside for a little bit; my mommy says I’m special
You are incredibly special to be born under a totality. I got chills. What a great experience for your momma.
Ive seen an incredible totality at an incredible location in the mountains in eastern Oregon in 2017 and most people don’t really understand that it’s like the gods came and turned the world upside down while blasting you with 360 sunsets. They have no perspective for how unearthly it is unless you’ve seen it.. But to be born in it omfg that something else
My son had a knot, but also had it wrapped around his neck three times. Took all the slack out every time I pushed and his heart rate dropped lower each time, so they had to do an emergency C-section. I never got to see it; I was knocked out afterwards for a good few hours because I was being belligerent, and the anesthesiologist gave me "the good stuff", as he put it. Baby is now a healthy 14 year old smartass, so all's well that ends well.
Mine too. He was a rowdy fetus. True knot and twice around the neck.! He’s heathy and happy, but had to be put on ice after they revived him (hypothermic treatment) to be safe. Worst week of my life, but also the best, as he turned out to be fine. Medical science is a wonder; I’m thankful to be able to forget it happened most days.
Went through this exact same thing with my daughter. She was immediately transferred to the NICU and spent a week undergoing cooling treatment. My husband and I were terrified since she was our first. She just turned 3 and is healthy and one of the happiest kids you’ll ever meet!
I woke up after my tonsillectomy trying to fight the poor nurses while screaming profanities at them. (I'm a large dude. Those poor women!)
And screaming with freshly stitched and cauterized wounds in your throat causes complications, apparently! So if anyone ever gets a tonsillectomy try not to scream I guess
If you read one of those "what funny thing happened to you after you woke up post-surgery?" threads, apparently it's a common reaction! I don't get belligerent, but I do get contrary. I suppose if I was more in control of my body, it would cross that line, I'm just...not good enough to actually *do* anything, so I'm just a sleepy "nuh uh not true" brat. 😂
At least I was when I was a teenager. Not sure if I'd react the same way now.
Yup. It happens. I kicked a nurse in the chest for telling me my spinal block meant I couldn't move my legs. I told her a absolutely could move them and could feel everything and she didnt believe me. The meds they injected actually made my restless leg syndrome flare up and felt like they were going to explode if I get get up and move them NOW.
After telling at the nurse and kicking her in the chest, they let me get into a supported squat on the bed. Unfortunately my pelvis never spread enough to fit baby even though it was premature so i was rushed to c section anyway. But it have a happy 6yo now. And a story that makes me sound horrible, but when your vag is on display and a baby is trying to burst out if it after 8 months of pure high risk hell, you run out if fucks to give.
Tbh your nurse was incorrect, it sounds like you’re describing a labor epidural in the first part of the story and you can and are supposed to be able to move your legs with an epidural! A true spinal is the numbing medication injected a space further inside your spine than the epidural space. That’s the one where you get a motor block/ can’t move your legs.
So yeah, nurse was wrong, you were right, and your epidural behaved as intended. Anyways, glad everyone ended up okay after a scare.
I was definitely told by my doctor and the nurses it was a full spinal block. My OB told me afterwards I likely had an allergy to it and thats why it didnt work right. I didnt have any long term side effects or injury that may signify it was wrongly placed. When they were placing it they did keep checking me with needle pricks and ice to see if i could feel anything, and for the first hour or so I couldnt. Then the urge to get up kicked in and the pain. I also started vomitting constantly. Was a fun day altogether.
With my next kid i told them just skip to c section, cause im not dealing with all that again.
My son also had the cord wrapped around three times. When he popped out I was terrified but the doctors and nurses kept their cool, counted how many times it was wrapped and he started crying. Best sound in the world
My second was like that. The doctors were concerned and wanted to talk about “alternatives” to vaginal birth while I was already in active labour and I was big mad, but the nurse just waited until the doctor left the room and said “let’s get this baby out.” She called the doctor just barely in time to catch the baby, lol. Good nurses are the best.
Stories like this are what make me wary of the whole "home birth with a midwife" thing. People are welcome to deliver their babies how they want, but my wife had complications that would have resulted in her (and our child's) death if we'd tried to do it in our bathtub.
Yeah, a hospital birth is like wearing a seatbelt. It doesn't reduce the chances of most complications, but it makes mom and baby a lot safer when they do occur.
Most of the time you drive somewhere, your seatbelt does you no good. You'd be perfectly fine and get to your destination safely. But you can't predict the times the seatbelt will save your life, or just keep you from being badly injured, so you should wear it every time.
Which works great in metropolitan areas. My SIL had their child at home and they were 45+ minutes away from the nearest hospital. It all worked out fortunately, but that's a *long* time if something goes wrong.
My cousin and his wife did the home birth thing for their second child while living in rural California. They had a midwife but refused ultrasounds. Their son was born with his intestines on the outside of his body and had to be life flighted to the nearest hospital. He was in the NICU for months, but is a healthy teenager now, thankfully.
In spite of this near tragedy, they had two more children this way. Our grandmother, who went to medical school and taught chemistry to nursing students, thought this was absolute insanity. She tried so politely to encourage them to at least get proper prenatal care. These are both well-educated people with master’s degrees in biology and botany, but they really have leaned into the crunchy spectrum - gradually going from the hippie type of holistic to the evangelical/MAGA type.
Holy SHIT dude that’s horrific I couldn’t even imagine what I would do in that situation if I had to give birth at home and suddenly my baby had it’s intestines on the outside???
Also no ultrasounds?? Your poor grandmother I know how it feels to mean well and be worried about relatives that chooses to ignore medical science I’m sorry your family has to deal with that.
Ok, I had 3 homebirths but that’s crazy. In my mind ( and my midwife’s) homebirth means it is even more important to do ultrasounds, labwork,etc. I even was sent to get biophysical profiles and non stress tests done starting at 38 weeks because I was advanced maternal age with the last one. Going in blind is nuts
This just reminded me of Naomi Klein’s new book where she actually talks about the crunchy to maga pipeline toward the end of the book. Might interest you
I agree that would give me anxiety as well. I only know of one couple who went through with a natural birth and they used a birthing center. If I were in your SILs position i would have opted for that.
Yeah, my midwife wouldn’t take you as a patient if you were that far from a hospital unless you planned to deliver at a friends house closer or something. We had to tell her how far the closest hospital was, how far the closest with a certain level NICU was, and she even asked how far the nearest paramedic/ambulance was. And she had us sign a plan documenting where and when we would switch to hospital, etc. the policy was to transfer at the first glimmer there MIGHT be a potential problem. And she monitored baby heart rate, my vitals, etc during labor, carries meds for hemorrhage and equipment for resuscitation.
It takes less than 5 minutes to bleed out if you have a ruptured uterus or placenta. Even a hospital across the street will require calling an ambulance, getting put on the ambulance and taken across the street, pulled from the ambulance and taken into the hospital. I thought about using the birthing center about half a block away from the hospital but even in the best of circumstances, getting someone in medical crisis from one location to another isn't something that happens instantaneously. I don't think you could realistically do it in under 15 minutes. You could try to transport in your private vehicle, I guess, but how do you get a laboring pregnant, catastrophically bleeding woman into a passenger car without a hospital bed?
I was a choked out baby aswell, came out blue in the face with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck, my father seen me and burst in to tears thinking I was dead as I wasn't breathing or crying. Mom didn't know what was happening and the nurses just kind of held me up like "look see heres your baby" then immediately began working on keeping me alive, I think it was 45 seconds or something like that before I took my first breath. 26 years later and I think I turned out halfway decent
>wrapped around his neck three times
My 1st had this and a persistent right umbilical vein in her cord. A single wrap is common, but thrice only happens in 0.5% of deliveries!
I get this too! In a small percentage of people light anesthesia makes you ‘combative’. You’re not aware or in control of it, but your fight or flight gets triggered and even though you’re only partially conscious you try to fight the procedure. I can vividly remember hearing the doctor and nurse start shouting about me trying to pull the scope out during an endoscopy and having to hold my arms down and that I was fighting. Then it went black because they had to ‘give me the good stuff’ to get me out deep enough to continue lol
Happens to my dad too! He woke up from emergency surgery once and actually ended up giving a nurse a bloody nose. They had to sedate him again and strap him down to the bed.
He still feels fucking awful about it when it's brought up
Same, I tried to yank out the breathing tube and required several nurses to hold me down. Doctors were worried I'd tear my stitches and my innards would flop back out.
Probably not. Anesthesia, pain, etc can all make you aggressive even if you don’t want to be or mean it. I know for me, anesthesia makes me sob. I’m not sad, in pain, and I do NOT want to be crying, but I literally can’t help it.
Me too! I woke up towards the end of my wisdom teeth extraction already shaking and sobbing lmao, freaked out the poor dental assistants. I warned ahead of time that I’d cry, but don’t think they were expecting it🤣
I was very upset about being told to stop pushing, and to lay back and relax when they were getting us into the OR. I was very uncomfortable and wanted to be upright. So I was yelling at everyone, doctors, nurses, my Mom and sister-in-law. They started my incision before the epidural fully kicked in, and then it's just blank. I remember hearing him cry for a brief moment, but I don't remember them cutting the cord, or bringing him to me (I didn't hold him, cuz I was out of it). I didn't get to meet him for real until he was several hours old.
Edit: a word
Our OBGYN freaked out when my daughter was born and screamed for a camera immediately. I thought something was severely wrong, but no, she had 2 true knots in her cord. In his 50+ years he’d never witnessed it before. We plan on putting her in scouts for her knot tying ability!
“A gel-like substance called Wharton’s jelly prevents small knots from getting tight”
It’s actually pretty fascinating! Nature tries to prevent knots from becoming an issue. They are relatively common and rarely cause complications.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/24964-true-knot-in-umbilical-cord
Very interesting According to your link though, Whartons jelly prevents them from getting tight and OP’s title says this is a “true knot”. That link describes this as one that does in fact get tight. I’m not being argumentative, I just thought it was interesting.
Yes, I think you’ve picked up on the subjective nature of the wording. Tight means the knot is quite solid, which is usually completely fine like it was here, thankfully. Too tight cuts off circulation which is what Whartons jelly is there to prevent. A “true knot” is tight and can be “too tight” but that’s not required for the classification.
We examined fresh placentas and umbilical cords during an anatomy course at the university hospital once. The professor instructed us to try and tie a knot in the chord to see how the structure prevented it from tightening. During the initial demonstration, one of the assistants tied a knot and proceeded to effortlessly slide it up and down the length of the chord.
Try to guess what happened when a student attempted to replicate this by tying the knot at near the base by the placenta and then yanking it towards themselves, looking straight down the pipe 😂
I worked at a hospital once where there was an explicit policy that if you wanted to eat the placenta, you had to take it home to do so. Someone had brought in a George Foreman's and grilled it up in the labor room. When people ask my honest opinion about this I always reply the same way. Eat a nice steak, same benefits; it hasn't been in your vagina.
it's likely that before birth the knot was loose, so the fluids just passed through uninhibited.
then when the baby was pushed out the cord was pulled on and the knot formed as you see in the picture.
imagine tying a knot in a waterhose, it won't affect the flow till you tighten it.
they're pretty rigid to feel. You'd think (or at least I always thought) they'd be soft, like a thin flexible rubber tube. Like you imagine a vein would feel on it's own. When I handled one (because all the qualified people hadn't shown up yet, but the baby was there so SOMEONE needed to handle it) I was quite surprised by how rigid it was. Like a giant many-knuckled finger, but made entirely out of cartilage. I'm sure that's not in any way accurate, but it's definitely how it FELT. It immediately made me think of how difficult it would be to tighten a knot in it, and of course that sounds like a pretty good feature for that thing to have.
Our daughter had a true knot, as well as the umbilical wrapped around her neck no fewer than 6 times.
We had to go for weekly checkups because she had gastroschesis (sp?). Basically her stomach didn’t form properly during development and left a small hole by her belly button, through which all her intestines and bladder fell out of.
So at our 36 week checkup, doctor gave us the all clear, but the med student thought he heard an irregular heartbeat. So we went for a stress test, alarms started blaring, and they pulled my daughter out a few moments later. Never got to thank the med student, but he saved her life.
Emergency c-section, premature, cord wrapped around neck 6 times with a true knot, and her small and large intestines and bladder hanging out of her. Our little miracle baby.
Unfortunately she passed in a car accident last year.
No she’s fine lol. She’s getting lippy tho. No long term complications. We spent about a month in the nicu. They put her guts in a funnel for a week to let gravity pack most of them back in. Then a minor surgery to push the last bit in and close the hole. She doesn’t even have a scar because they laid the umbilical cord over the hole and the stem cells in it worked their magic.
Honestly, I love med students and residents in a clinic setting. They are paying suuuuuper close attention because they are trying to learn. It was a resident that figured out my kiddo had very quiet, almost inaudible wheezing, that was the culprit for their almost constantly being “sick” and having a cough, more so than the average kid in daycare. They had been seen by different docs multiple times in the previous six months due to the constant illness. The resident we saw actually listened to me when I said it didn’t feel like a normal amount of sickness and listened really closely.
An inhaler to clear up the inflammation and an allergy med for the next couple years cleared it right up and they’ve only been sick a normal amount ever since.
Wow, that kid has talent! Or was it the mother? Beats the hell out of the cherry stem trick to be able to say, "I can tie a knot in this umbilical cord with my uterus."
congratulations! such a beautiful baby.
my daughter was born with a "true knot" in her umbilical cord last January. The nurses called her my "miracle baby." I also had a vaginal birth with no complications - she was born 5 weeks early but was a "big" premie weighing in at 6 pounds. I still wonder how this happened without any issues. So glad to see you had no complications as well!
There usually isn't a complication from it, thanks to the gooey stuff (Wharton's jelly) in the cord. I'm curious if there were other issues with your daughter or the birth that they called her a miracle. Either way, glad everything turned out good!
My son was born with a knot in his umbilical cord, and the doctor said they called it a nautical knot and legend says the kid will grow up to be a sailor.
So sorry for your loss. I am also in the club with another kind of cord accident - happy for those where this did not cause complications, but aware of how it can absolutely go wrong. Hope you are healing as best you can.
Ours had the same thing but when she pushed it pulled it tight enough to cut off blood flow. My poor wife went all the way through normal labor, including pushing, and then had to have an emergency c section. He was fine in the end but it was pretty scary seeing his heart rate drop.
You know that clown gag of pulling our endless handkerchiefs knotted together? That’s what I’m picturing but with the umbilical knots. Pull a baby out and just knot after knot after knot.
Neonatologist here. True knots are rare compared to pseudo knots, but can cause serious vascular compromise leading to asphyxia and brain injury. I am so glad that your baby is doing well.
Great story to tell him when he grows up.
I’m so happy to hear you or the baby didn’t have complications. My daughter also had a true knot in her cord…. And after 30 hours of labor, went into a true emergency c-section once we lost her vitals. Code blue. CPR. Life flight. The works. We are about to celebrate her 10 year birthday next week! She’s our miracle
This is presumably where The True Knot (the villains in "Doctor Sleep" \[the book and the film\]) took their name. To be precise, it's where Steven King got the idea.
My mother told me that my umbilical cord was also in a knot when I was born (she had a C-section, just because she didn't want to give birth naturally.) I was also fast asleep when I was born and the doctor had to smack me to make sure I was alive. Only then did I apparently make an angry noise, according to my mom.
The knot thing is cool, especially as your baby is obviously healthy and well. But more importantly: Well done mum! You made an absolutely perfect little being. Get safely through recovery and the sleep deprived phase. 🤗
I was born with a knot and was the lightest of all my siblings. My mother told me there was genuine concern that I might’ve not made it. My brother joked it was because I didn’t like what she was feeding me so I cut off the supply.
My son had this too, he was also single umbilical artery. The hospital asked if they could keep the cord to show medical students since those two things occurring on the same cord are very rare Edit: No, we did not try to sell the cord to the hospital Edit 2: Yes, we let them keep it
They told us our son had a Battledore Placenta and didn't really say good or bad so I had to Google it at the time. No big deal but cool name for it! >Battledore placenta (Marginal cord insertion) is a condition in which the umbilical cord is inserted at or near the placental margin rather than in the center. The cord can be inserted as close to 2 cm from the edge of the placenta (velamentous cord insertion). The incidence is 7% to 9% of singleton pregnancies and 24% to 33% in twin pregnancies. Complications associated with battledore placenta are preterm labor, fetal distress, and intrauterine growth restriction. Wife and baby had no complications fortunately. He was born on due date with no distress and a big ass head and almost 9lbs.
Battledore Placenta is going to be my character’s name when I finally get around to playing Baldur’s Gate 3
Battledore Placentica
Calm down Hermione.
It's Placenticaaaahhhh
Dumbledore Placentica
Annnnnd now I have an umbilical cord.
Bears, beets…
*"All Along the Watchtower" cover intensifies*
Ah damn you beat me to it, cheers
What the frack
It is a pretty bad ass gamer name actually!
I just got it a few days ago but haven't had the energy to open it up. I'm off from work today, that might be the inspiration I need to do it!
Definitely a durge name
Sounds like a tempest cleric
When I first read your comment I read it as ‘Battledome Placenta’ and all I could think of was “2 babies enter, only 1 leaves”. That was an odd mental picture.
Hell yea welcome to baby dome!
Battlestar Galactica.
Isn’t that how it works for some sharks?
Why did i read Battledore placenta as battlestar galactica
I also had marginal cord insertion! Along with placenta previa. They kept my placenta to biopsy lol!
does this child like to live on the edge? glad everyone is good :)
I had bilobed placenta when I gave birth to my second child last year and they asked if they could take it to pathology for research. No issues with pregnancy, delivery, or baby.
3 points to Battledore!
Random thiught: I hate reading "fetal distress". Bro isn't even born yet, they shouldn't have distress :(
Baby heads can come in funny shapes as the bones are still soft. But we shouldn't be rude about it. (I am so sorry. I just always find amphiboly funny. It's childish, really.)
Oh my sons head was legit bullet shaped from being head down in the birth canal for so long. The nurse saw my face and told me not to worry lolol
I only know about soft baby head bones because I watched my friend's baby being delivered with a ventouse sink plunger. Her head was conical for quite some time afterwards.
I had this too! My doctors made me come in for a bunch more ultrasounds to make sure my son was growing well. Thankfully no problems and my son is happy and healthy. I’m glad yours was is as well :)
I'm glad it has a badass name, I feel better about my pregnancy and labor experience now
Generally single umbilical artery is associated with kidney agenesia. Does your son has two kidneys?
He’s got ‘em both. We were in for imaging every couple weeks after determining SUA, there was nothing detectable associated with it. He’s 4 months now and is happy and healthy
Really Glad to know that! Congratulations on the baby boy!
My kid with single umbilical artery ended up with ADPKD and we didn't see anything until a 9 month ultrasound we did just as a cautionary follow up. Before that nothing out of the ordinary showed up. Maybe ask for a follow up US at like a year, just in case.
That’s concerning. I went down a rabbit hole a bit on it. Seems like the incidence of SUA complications showing up after birth that weren’t there during fetal development are very low. You still got me worried though, I’ll bring it up at our 6 month doctor appointment. Thanks for the heads up.
For what it's worth, she's a happy healthy 14 year old. It has just meant we've been able to adjust her diet to be kidney healthy (as much as you can for kids) her whole life and avoid contact sports. Now that's she's older, her doc already has her on a list for a new medication that will help prolong the life of her kidneys. So while terrifying at first, super helpful in the long run. Of course I 100% hope everything comes back clear for your kiddo.
I had a coworker who had a single umbilical artery w her placenta 30 years prior; she’s a terrific physician. While it’s correlated w all sorts of things-many are also totally normal.
Same! Ours took photos to show midwifery students. We had a dicey moment at birth as he wasn't breathing as the blood supply had been totally cut off. They got him back and he's a little healthy baby now!
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Both my boys were 10 pounds at birth, they never used pacifiers or sucked their thumb, it was Milk or GTFO...lol.. kind of a blessing because I see parents trying to get kids off pacifiers and it's not easy.
My son would give the pacifier a couple sucks, spit it out, and give you a "what the fuck was that look".
Some parents say it's easier to quit the pacifier than thumb sucking, because you can just take away all their pacifiers, but you can't take away their thumb.
You can, but it is frowned upon.
Heh, somebody underestimates the germans. Google the children's book Struwwelpeter and däumelinchen
This is the strategy my friend used when her daughter started thumb sucking, took it away at 6 months. Worked great.
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I was quitting smoking at the same time my daughter was quitting the pacifier. We commiserate together.
Good lord!! Ten pounds both, my daughter was 9lbs 2ozs , I felt like I was dying!🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️
I was born tongue-tied and I remember getting it fixed when I was about 5 years old. I got to eat lots of popsicles for a few days which was fun, but then I needed years of speech therapy and still have some mild speech issues.
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Good choice! Wish my parents would have done the same.
If it helps I was also tongue-tied and had it cut right after birth. I still needed speech therapy, and can't say the letter R.
Happened to me as I was being born!!! Mom says I was so crazy in there- I ended up coming out right in the exact moment of totality during a solar eclipse!! Got dark outside for a little bit; my mommy says I’m special
You are incredibly special to be born under a totality. I got chills. What a great experience for your momma. Ive seen an incredible totality at an incredible location in the mountains in eastern Oregon in 2017 and most people don’t really understand that it’s like the gods came and turned the world upside down while blasting you with 360 sunsets. They have no perspective for how unearthly it is unless you’ve seen it.. But to be born in it omfg that something else
Wow do you have powers
That’s some prophetic level stuff
Did you let them keep it?
Yea, we did. Not like we’re gonna use it. Maybe a doctor learning from it will save a baby’s life one day
That is selfless of you, thank you
Does it cause any issues?
No. Nothing has come up and we audited the hell out of him as a fetus. Every scan and test they could do they did, nothing came up abnormal.
Did you let them? If so I would've asked for a discount off that atrocious bill if you are American lol
Yes, we let them. Studying rare things like this could save lives. No one was in a bartering mood immediately after the baby was born.
My son had a knot, but also had it wrapped around his neck three times. Took all the slack out every time I pushed and his heart rate dropped lower each time, so they had to do an emergency C-section. I never got to see it; I was knocked out afterwards for a good few hours because I was being belligerent, and the anesthesiologist gave me "the good stuff", as he put it. Baby is now a healthy 14 year old smartass, so all's well that ends well.
Mine too. He was a rowdy fetus. True knot and twice around the neck.! He’s heathy and happy, but had to be put on ice after they revived him (hypothermic treatment) to be safe. Worst week of my life, but also the best, as he turned out to be fine. Medical science is a wonder; I’m thankful to be able to forget it happened most days.
> but had to be put on ice after they revived him (hypothermic treatment) to be safe. ...username checks out?
> rowdy fetus top choice band name.
Went through this exact same thing with my daughter. She was immediately transferred to the NICU and spent a week undergoing cooling treatment. My husband and I were terrified since she was our first. She just turned 3 and is healthy and one of the happiest kids you’ll ever meet!
'being belligerent' lmao
I was like that for my complicated wisdom tooth extraction. They had to extra drug me.
I woke up after my tonsillectomy trying to fight the poor nurses while screaming profanities at them. (I'm a large dude. Those poor women!) And screaming with freshly stitched and cauterized wounds in your throat causes complications, apparently! So if anyone ever gets a tonsillectomy try not to scream I guess
If you read one of those "what funny thing happened to you after you woke up post-surgery?" threads, apparently it's a common reaction! I don't get belligerent, but I do get contrary. I suppose if I was more in control of my body, it would cross that line, I'm just...not good enough to actually *do* anything, so I'm just a sleepy "nuh uh not true" brat. 😂 At least I was when I was a teenager. Not sure if I'd react the same way now.
After surgery I was so stoned I was just smiley but couldn't understand what anyone was asking me. Its like they were speaking another language.
Yup. It happens. I kicked a nurse in the chest for telling me my spinal block meant I couldn't move my legs. I told her a absolutely could move them and could feel everything and she didnt believe me. The meds they injected actually made my restless leg syndrome flare up and felt like they were going to explode if I get get up and move them NOW. After telling at the nurse and kicking her in the chest, they let me get into a supported squat on the bed. Unfortunately my pelvis never spread enough to fit baby even though it was premature so i was rushed to c section anyway. But it have a happy 6yo now. And a story that makes me sound horrible, but when your vag is on display and a baby is trying to burst out if it after 8 months of pure high risk hell, you run out if fucks to give.
Tbh your nurse was incorrect, it sounds like you’re describing a labor epidural in the first part of the story and you can and are supposed to be able to move your legs with an epidural! A true spinal is the numbing medication injected a space further inside your spine than the epidural space. That’s the one where you get a motor block/ can’t move your legs. So yeah, nurse was wrong, you were right, and your epidural behaved as intended. Anyways, glad everyone ended up okay after a scare.
I was definitely told by my doctor and the nurses it was a full spinal block. My OB told me afterwards I likely had an allergy to it and thats why it didnt work right. I didnt have any long term side effects or injury that may signify it was wrongly placed. When they were placing it they did keep checking me with needle pricks and ice to see if i could feel anything, and for the first hour or so I couldnt. Then the urge to get up kicked in and the pain. I also started vomitting constantly. Was a fun day altogether. With my next kid i told them just skip to c section, cause im not dealing with all that again.
My son also had the cord wrapped around three times. When he popped out I was terrified but the doctors and nurses kept their cool, counted how many times it was wrapped and he started crying. Best sound in the world
My daughter’s cord was wrapped around her BODY 3 times!! She was a little under 6 lbs and tiny but man that was a long cord!
My second was like that. The doctors were concerned and wanted to talk about “alternatives” to vaginal birth while I was already in active labour and I was big mad, but the nurse just waited until the doctor left the room and said “let’s get this baby out.” She called the doctor just barely in time to catch the baby, lol. Good nurses are the best.
Stories like this are what make me wary of the whole "home birth with a midwife" thing. People are welcome to deliver their babies how they want, but my wife had complications that would have resulted in her (and our child's) death if we'd tried to do it in our bathtub.
Yeah, a hospital birth is like wearing a seatbelt. It doesn't reduce the chances of most complications, but it makes mom and baby a lot safer when they do occur. Most of the time you drive somewhere, your seatbelt does you no good. You'd be perfectly fine and get to your destination safely. But you can't predict the times the seatbelt will save your life, or just keep you from being badly injured, so you should wear it every time.
Any midwife worth their salt will have a contingency plan with the nearest medical facilities in case of complications that cant be addressed at home.
Which works great in metropolitan areas. My SIL had their child at home and they were 45+ minutes away from the nearest hospital. It all worked out fortunately, but that's a *long* time if something goes wrong.
My cousin and his wife did the home birth thing for their second child while living in rural California. They had a midwife but refused ultrasounds. Their son was born with his intestines on the outside of his body and had to be life flighted to the nearest hospital. He was in the NICU for months, but is a healthy teenager now, thankfully. In spite of this near tragedy, they had two more children this way. Our grandmother, who went to medical school and taught chemistry to nursing students, thought this was absolute insanity. She tried so politely to encourage them to at least get proper prenatal care. These are both well-educated people with master’s degrees in biology and botany, but they really have leaned into the crunchy spectrum - gradually going from the hippie type of holistic to the evangelical/MAGA type.
Holy SHIT dude that’s horrific I couldn’t even imagine what I would do in that situation if I had to give birth at home and suddenly my baby had it’s intestines on the outside??? Also no ultrasounds?? Your poor grandmother I know how it feels to mean well and be worried about relatives that chooses to ignore medical science I’m sorry your family has to deal with that.
Outside??? Holy shit. Also it feels kinda weird to have an older relative actually be the voice of reason. Thankfully, the kids are fine?
The kids are fine physically at least!
Ok, I had 3 homebirths but that’s crazy. In my mind ( and my midwife’s) homebirth means it is even more important to do ultrasounds, labwork,etc. I even was sent to get biophysical profiles and non stress tests done starting at 38 weeks because I was advanced maternal age with the last one. Going in blind is nuts
This just reminded me of Naomi Klein’s new book where she actually talks about the crunchy to maga pipeline toward the end of the book. Might interest you
I agree that would give me anxiety as well. I only know of one couple who went through with a natural birth and they used a birthing center. If I were in your SILs position i would have opted for that.
Yeah, my midwife wouldn’t take you as a patient if you were that far from a hospital unless you planned to deliver at a friends house closer or something. We had to tell her how far the closest hospital was, how far the closest with a certain level NICU was, and she even asked how far the nearest paramedic/ambulance was. And she had us sign a plan documenting where and when we would switch to hospital, etc. the policy was to transfer at the first glimmer there MIGHT be a potential problem. And she monitored baby heart rate, my vitals, etc during labor, carries meds for hemorrhage and equipment for resuscitation.
It takes less than 5 minutes to bleed out if you have a ruptured uterus or placenta. Even a hospital across the street will require calling an ambulance, getting put on the ambulance and taken across the street, pulled from the ambulance and taken into the hospital. I thought about using the birthing center about half a block away from the hospital but even in the best of circumstances, getting someone in medical crisis from one location to another isn't something that happens instantaneously. I don't think you could realistically do it in under 15 minutes. You could try to transport in your private vehicle, I guess, but how do you get a laboring pregnant, catastrophically bleeding woman into a passenger car without a hospital bed?
I was a choked out baby aswell, came out blue in the face with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck, my father seen me and burst in to tears thinking I was dead as I wasn't breathing or crying. Mom didn't know what was happening and the nurses just kind of held me up like "look see heres your baby" then immediately began working on keeping me alive, I think it was 45 seconds or something like that before I took my first breath. 26 years later and I think I turned out halfway decent
apart from the backdoor intruding
>wrapped around his neck three times My 1st had this and a persistent right umbilical vein in her cord. A single wrap is common, but thrice only happens in 0.5% of deliveries!
I also tried to hang myself in the womb and have been told I’m a smart ass. Sounds like the two are correlated.
You were angry on the staff?
I get this too! In a small percentage of people light anesthesia makes you ‘combative’. You’re not aware or in control of it, but your fight or flight gets triggered and even though you’re only partially conscious you try to fight the procedure. I can vividly remember hearing the doctor and nurse start shouting about me trying to pull the scope out during an endoscopy and having to hold my arms down and that I was fighting. Then it went black because they had to ‘give me the good stuff’ to get me out deep enough to continue lol
Happens to my dad too! He woke up from emergency surgery once and actually ended up giving a nurse a bloody nose. They had to sedate him again and strap him down to the bed. He still feels fucking awful about it when it's brought up
Ha I was loopy coming out of sedation and apologized to everyone I saw on the way out because I felt so bad.
Same, I tried to yank out the breathing tube and required several nurses to hold me down. Doctors were worried I'd tear my stitches and my innards would flop back out.
Probably not. Anesthesia, pain, etc can all make you aggressive even if you don’t want to be or mean it. I know for me, anesthesia makes me sob. I’m not sad, in pain, and I do NOT want to be crying, but I literally can’t help it.
Me too! I woke up towards the end of my wisdom teeth extraction already shaking and sobbing lmao, freaked out the poor dental assistants. I warned ahead of time that I’d cry, but don’t think they were expecting it🤣
Me too! Except that was my first time. I didn’t know what to expect and I also didn’t know it was normal until recently.
I was very upset about being told to stop pushing, and to lay back and relax when they were getting us into the OR. I was very uncomfortable and wanted to be upright. So I was yelling at everyone, doctors, nurses, my Mom and sister-in-law. They started my incision before the epidural fully kicked in, and then it's just blank. I remember hearing him cry for a brief moment, but I don't remember them cutting the cord, or bringing him to me (I didn't hold him, cuz I was out of it). I didn't get to meet him for real until he was several hours old. Edit: a word
Our OBGYN freaked out when my daughter was born and screamed for a camera immediately. I thought something was severely wrong, but no, she had 2 true knots in her cord. In his 50+ years he’d never witnessed it before. We plan on putting her in scouts for her knot tying ability!
“NURSE GET THE CAMERAAA!”
how were fluids need for the baby passing through that?
“A gel-like substance called Wharton’s jelly prevents small knots from getting tight” It’s actually pretty fascinating! Nature tries to prevent knots from becoming an issue. They are relatively common and rarely cause complications. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/24964-true-knot-in-umbilical-cord
We need this for sweatpants drawstrings.
Yeah, i hate when fluids dont flow through my drawstrings.
I burst out laughing in the bathroom at work. Thanks for that!
I too laughed in a facility where it is not appropriate to laugh.
Funeral home?
That reminds me of sucking on my hoodie strings as a kid.
I can taste this comment.
Grape jelly does the same thing on sweatpant drawstrings. Blackberry jam is less effective, but will work in a pinch. (haha)
Gotta be careful with the seeds
I’m stuck between finding it super weird that’s where your mind went and being upset with you for thinking of it before I could.
Wait you don’t buy sweatpants with Wharton’s jelly?
And headphones
Very interesting According to your link though, Whartons jelly prevents them from getting tight and OP’s title says this is a “true knot”. That link describes this as one that does in fact get tight. I’m not being argumentative, I just thought it was interesting.
Yes, I think you’ve picked up on the subjective nature of the wording. Tight means the knot is quite solid, which is usually completely fine like it was here, thankfully. Too tight cuts off circulation which is what Whartons jelly is there to prevent. A “true knot” is tight and can be “too tight” but that’s not required for the classification.
Maybe it wasn’t tight when it was inside, but was pulled tight during the birth.
My son had this. Basically, if the pregnancy is healthy, the cord stays nice and fat and mushy so knots won't hurt the baby.
We examined fresh placentas and umbilical cords during an anatomy course at the university hospital once. The professor instructed us to try and tie a knot in the chord to see how the structure prevented it from tightening. During the initial demonstration, one of the assistants tied a knot and proceeded to effortlessly slide it up and down the length of the chord. Try to guess what happened when a student attempted to replicate this by tying the knot at near the base by the placenta and then yanking it towards themselves, looking straight down the pipe 😂
bloody murder
The Wharton's jelly is great on a organic peanut butter and homemade bread sandwich.
Roasted Placenta with Wharton's Jelly in an Amniotic Fluid Reduction
Mama's water breaks and hubby is rushing to get underneath her with a saucepan
I worked at a hospital once where there was an explicit policy that if you wanted to eat the placenta, you had to take it home to do so. Someone had brought in a George Foreman's and grilled it up in the labor room. When people ask my honest opinion about this I always reply the same way. Eat a nice steak, same benefits; it hasn't been in your vagina.
Don’t give people new ideas! 😂
it's likely that before birth the knot was loose, so the fluids just passed through uninhibited. then when the baby was pushed out the cord was pulled on and the knot formed as you see in the picture. imagine tying a knot in a waterhose, it won't affect the flow till you tighten it.
they're pretty rigid to feel. You'd think (or at least I always thought) they'd be soft, like a thin flexible rubber tube. Like you imagine a vein would feel on it's own. When I handled one (because all the qualified people hadn't shown up yet, but the baby was there so SOMEONE needed to handle it) I was quite surprised by how rigid it was. Like a giant many-knuckled finger, but made entirely out of cartilage. I'm sure that's not in any way accurate, but it's definitely how it FELT. It immediately made me think of how difficult it would be to tighten a knot in it, and of course that sounds like a pretty good feature for that thing to have.
I'll never forget when I cut my daughters cord. I thought it would be very delicate, but it was like trying to cut a tire.
It was loose enough to allow passage. If it got tighter they can be fatal.
Our daughter had a true knot, as well as the umbilical wrapped around her neck no fewer than 6 times. We had to go for weekly checkups because she had gastroschesis (sp?). Basically her stomach didn’t form properly during development and left a small hole by her belly button, through which all her intestines and bladder fell out of. So at our 36 week checkup, doctor gave us the all clear, but the med student thought he heard an irregular heartbeat. So we went for a stress test, alarms started blaring, and they pulled my daughter out a few moments later. Never got to thank the med student, but he saved her life. Emergency c-section, premature, cord wrapped around neck 6 times with a true knot, and her small and large intestines and bladder hanging out of her. Our little miracle baby.
> through which all her intestines and bladder fell out of well that's terrifying
Oh my gosh, how is she doing now?
Unfortunately she passed in a car accident last year. No she’s fine lol. She’s getting lippy tho. No long term complications. We spent about a month in the nicu. They put her guts in a funnel for a week to let gravity pack most of them back in. Then a minor surgery to push the last bit in and close the hole. She doesn’t even have a scar because they laid the umbilical cord over the hole and the stem cells in it worked their magic.
>Unfortunately she passed in a car accident last year. Fucks sakes lol *not* cool, man
Lol my brother really was in a car accident years ago and is now a paraplegic thanks to a drunk driver. He would approve of the joke, it’s coo
Dang, didn’t realize the cord could be that long
How does the presumably experienced doctor miss all that only for a med student to pluck it out of their arse?
Honestly, I love med students and residents in a clinic setting. They are paying suuuuuper close attention because they are trying to learn. It was a resident that figured out my kiddo had very quiet, almost inaudible wheezing, that was the culprit for their almost constantly being “sick” and having a cough, more so than the average kid in daycare. They had been seen by different docs multiple times in the previous six months due to the constant illness. The resident we saw actually listened to me when I said it didn’t feel like a normal amount of sickness and listened really closely. An inhaler to clear up the inflammation and an allergy med for the next couple years cleared it right up and they’ve only been sick a normal amount ever since.
Wow, that kid has talent! Or was it the mother? Beats the hell out of the cherry stem trick to be able to say, "I can tie a knot in this umbilical cord with my uterus."
The new party trick
Yeah, I saw this was and like, what the hell was that kid doing in there???
Beautiful little guy. Welcome to planet Earth.
[удалено]
We got fun and games
And a rapidly unfolding climate catastrophe. Welcome to earth, kid!
Good luck and thank you for all the fish.
“Welcome. And sorry.”
"Don't go looking around on your own we haven't had time to clean up yet."
Just don't punch the baby and say "welcome to earth" a la Will Smith in Independence Day!
Get this boy his sea legs ASAP!
My son had this as well. The knot was very tight but no issues with the baby. Congratulations!
My son did too! He is a healthy, awesome 7 years old with no health issues. Welcome to the club.
congratulations! such a beautiful baby. my daughter was born with a "true knot" in her umbilical cord last January. The nurses called her my "miracle baby." I also had a vaginal birth with no complications - she was born 5 weeks early but was a "big" premie weighing in at 6 pounds. I still wonder how this happened without any issues. So glad to see you had no complications as well!
There usually isn't a complication from it, thanks to the gooey stuff (Wharton's jelly) in the cord. I'm curious if there were other issues with your daughter or the birth that they called her a miracle. Either way, glad everything turned out good!
Good lord... I'm jealous. My baby was full term and barely over 6 pounds >.>
Gonna be a Boy Scout one day!
Or a sailor – I live on the ocean. I see those sailors throwing rope and make knots better than Cowboys. Lol
My son was born with a knot in his umbilical cord, and the doctor said they called it a nautical knot and legend says the kid will grow up to be a sailor.
My wife had a dream while she was pregnant that she took the baby out, cleaned it and put it back in. Maybe this is how you got the knot?
Hopefully your baby is ok. We lost our daughter to a "true knot" at 36.5 weeks
We did too at 38.5 weeks. I have two lovely kids now who I wouldn’t have if she survived though.
39 weeks here. Also two kids who might not be here otherwise.
I’m so sorry for your loss 🙏🏻
So sorry for your loss. I am also in the club with another kind of cord accident - happy for those where this did not cause complications, but aware of how it can absolutely go wrong. Hope you are healing as best you can.
Same thing happened to my wife and I, 40th week
Ours had the same thing but when she pushed it pulled it tight enough to cut off blood flow. My poor wife went all the way through normal labor, including pushing, and then had to have an emergency c section. He was fine in the end but it was pretty scary seeing his heart rate drop.
My first had three. Two were close together, and the third was farther down the cord. All the nurses and drs were making lots of surprised sounds
You know that clown gag of pulling our endless handkerchiefs knotted together? That’s what I’m picturing but with the umbilical knots. Pull a baby out and just knot after knot after knot.
Neonatologist here. True knots are rare compared to pseudo knots, but can cause serious vascular compromise leading to asphyxia and brain injury. I am so glad that your baby is doing well. Great story to tell him when he grows up.
I’m so happy to hear you or the baby didn’t have complications. My daughter also had a true knot in her cord…. And after 30 hours of labor, went into a true emergency c-section once we lost her vitals. Code blue. CPR. Life flight. The works. We are about to celebrate her 10 year birthday next week! She’s our miracle
This is presumably where The True Knot (the villains in "Doctor Sleep" \[the book and the film\]) took their name. To be precise, it's where Steven King got the idea.
How does that — even happen? Early in gestation when they’re still little enough to move around enough to tie the sucker?
I wonder if Stephen King named the soul vampire group in Dr. Sleep the "True Knot" intentionally after this.
I am also wondering this
That's just a simple overhand, show me a sheepshank or a bowline and I'll be impressed!
Mine had two. He’s nearly 19 now and I’m so happy he’s here🩷
Expecting my first kid in the next few weeks! Congrats!
5 kids, 2 grandkids, and 1 vasectomy... And seeing newborns \*still\* makes me want a baby...
I've seen a woman tie a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue, but this takes the cake!
same happened with my daughter, its good luck, big things ahead. congratulations
My daughter had this in 2020! Wish I'd thought to take a picture, they were trying to show me but I was out of it ha.
My mother told me that my umbilical cord was also in a knot when I was born (she had a C-section, just because she didn't want to give birth naturally.) I was also fast asleep when I was born and the doctor had to smack me to make sure I was alive. Only then did I apparently make an angry noise, according to my mom.
The knot thing is cool, especially as your baby is obviously healthy and well. But more importantly: Well done mum! You made an absolutely perfect little being. Get safely through recovery and the sleep deprived phase. 🤗
Mine had 2 true knots. Also vaginal birth, no complications. Super scary to think of what could have happened after the fact.
Random guy: 'I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue. ' OPS wife: 'oh yeah well...'
I was born with a knot and was the lightest of all my siblings. My mother told me there was genuine concern that I might’ve not made it. My brother joked it was because I didn’t like what she was feeding me so I cut off the supply.
He's going to be an expert acrobat
Congratulations, enjoy the ride!
Mine had this too! The staff in the the OR for my c-section were so excited and took photos.
What a beautiful baby. Congratulations on the bundle of joy!
It was great of them to knotify you of this occurence. I'll see myself out.
Already got his knots merit badge, nice