That’s why I made sure I had a pit stop before our second child was born. :eek:
Basically, you’re bearing down and pushing, and well, the vagina, rectum, and urethra are all sort of in the same area, and yes, it’s a dirty messy painful business, and you’re on display for everyone in the room, but you don’t care, you just want it out.
Then the endorphins kick in. 
Yes, poop comes out. Because of the distortion of the local structures caused by the baby smashing everything else against the inside of the pelvis, this can be rather dramatic. One woman that I recall extruded a looooooooonnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggg poop ribbon that kept curling and twisting and curling and folding like this stuff. She expressed no awareness of this, and the evidence was continually whisked away with changes of pads. The total volume of poop was mesmerizing. Heh.
Fetal stool (meconium) is greenish black, incredibly sticky/tarry, and a tiny amount goes a long way to stain surfaces. The baby can also be coated with a variable amount of vernix.
One was born in the hospital in West Bend, Wisconsin, one was born in the hospital in Brookfield, Wisconsin, one was born in the hospital in West Allis, Wisconsin.
The youngest was born in 1985. Not sure if that counts as “these days”. I’m pretty sure we had running water, automobiles, and color television wayyy back then.:p;)
Oh, and I confirmed with my wife that she did get an enema on each of them, but did not get a cath for any of them. Guess I was off on that.:smack:
It totally depends on the individual birth. It’s common to poop and pee during labor. But plenty of moms don’t.
My mom had 4 unmedicated labors in the 80s and 90s, and while she did make several trips to the toilet during labor, she didn’t soil herself during transition and pushing (later stages), and expressed shock at the idea that she could have. She says pushing with your vagina is totally different than voiding your bowels or bladder, and it was something she could control.
Most hospitals were stopping doing a routine “prep and enema” (prep being getting a shave) by the mid 80’s when evidence began accumulating that it made no difference in outcomes; it did not reduce the infection or complication rate.
I was delivering a lot of babies in Milwaukee between 1983-90, (@ Mike, Joe, and Francis’ OB units) and while the order for “prep and enema” was still being given when I started doing OB, by 1990 it had pretty much disappeared.
Some women would still ask for it though, as they were accustomed to it, and really preferred not to poop during the delivery. Most were glad to not get it.
First baby in 1981, enema, prep, the whole nine yards. Second baby in 1987. None of that. I don’t think it made any difference between them. The first one was still the messiest, but it didn’t have anything to do with poop.
Frankly it comes down to one thing: Is the rectal vault empty when baby’s head is coming down the canal? If yes, no poop. If no, there will be poop. No matter what the patient thinks they can control.
First baby 1989. No enema, no poop, no pee, but the doctor straight cathed me WITHOUT warning me ahead of time just after the delivery of the placenta.
It hurt way worse than the delivery.
Other children (1992 and 1998), no poop, no pee, no enema, no cath. (different docs–that one had by then retired and a good thing, too). All normal spontaneous vaginal births.
Qad--I thought back in the day that docs thought an enema was a “good” was of either starting labor or advancing it. Thoughts?
Maybe some docs thought that; I don’t recall seeing that idea advanced (or debunked) in the OB literature at the time. I may have missed it, though. I had access to far fewer med resources back then, what with lacking an internet.
IMPI (in my practice experience), bladder caths got done if mom had a full bladder and was unable to urinate on her own. Having a full bladder got to be very uncomfortable as delivery neared, and once baby was far enough down the canal, mom often couldn’t void, as the urethra was effectively shut off by baby’s head.
So I guess we can all agree on two things: There Will Be Blood and There May Be Poop
My mom tells me that this was the biggest difference between her two deliveries, and one of the most annoying things about her second delivery. The first delivery was in a hospital on a Navy base, and they shaved just around the vaginal opening, presumably to provide a clear area in case an episiotomy was necessary. The second delivery was in a civilian hospital, and they shaved navel-to-rectum. Not fun growing back in.
When I was born, 1976, enema, shaving, unwanted meds…all of it. When my brother was born in 1984, none of that happened. I don’t know about episiotomies, though I suspect that happened both times.
Another major change was that my dad was barely allowed in the building when I was born whereas he was in the room when my brother was. He described it rather succinctly as “messy.” From what I know, I can’t argue that point.
This guy was old school, all the way–and his bedside manner was um, somewhat lacking. I didn’t have to get an enema etc, but I still remember the pain of that straight cath. I wasn’t even given the option of getting up to pee (or a bedpan). I had had only Stadol IVP, so could have gotten up w/o difficulty.
Oh, and he was the only one who gave me Pitocin AFTER delivery as well. And the biggest episiotomy my current OB/GYNE has ever seen. (in his defense for that, my daughter was born with the cord wrapped tightly around her neck. She was blue. He told me [mid-contraction] to stop pushing–as if–and he did what he needed to do. The funny thing is he apologized to my husband for his “missing out” on cutting the cord. My husband looked at him like he was crazy and said “is our daughter all right?”) Funny what one remembers of L & D…
Getting Pit after delivery is quite routine where I work as post-delivery management in firming up the fundus and hopefully assisting in avoiding a post partum hemorhage.
I know almost nothing of OB. I didn’t get it with my other 2 deliveries, neither of which could be called straightforward. I consider myself lucky that I did not, since Pit hurts much more than non-Pit recuperation.
Completely tangential, but what the hell: one of my favorite quotes from an old Merck manual is, “proof of pregnancy is delivery of a fetus, viability to be determined by the practitioner.” (slightly paraphrased, as it’s been years since I read it).
#7 above.
Damn You CalMeacham!
Since the question has been asked and answered, I’ll relay an amusing anecdote:
A female colleague from a previous job told all who would listen about her first delivery. Apparently at one point during the process she squeezed out a giant floater. She stated that she didn’t mind that ten strangers staring at her vajayjay one bit, but dropping a log in public utterly mortified her.
