Jadon's Journey: Brachial Plexus Awareness Week Oct 18th-24th

Monday, October 19, 2009

Brachial Plexus Awareness Week Oct 18th-24th

Did you know that shoulder dystocia and brachial plexus injuries are more common than CP or Downs syndrome? Please tell everyone you know about shoulder dystocia and brachial plexus injuries. Urge your friends to talk to their OB/GYN's or midwives about their risk of a shoulder dystocia emergency and how to prevent it.

Tell one woman, save one baby.

Brachial Plexus Injury Awareness Week Oct 18 - 24.

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If you are pregnant and have found this website on accident or through friends I encourage you to ask your OB some very important questions. The biggest one being how he/she would handle something called Shoulder Dystocia. This is a complication that turns an otherwise normal delivery into an emergency situation. We had never heard the term going into the delivery of our third child. I had two textbook perfect deliveries prior to this. There are also risk factors and looking back I see now that I had several of them. Of course hindsight is 20/20 and it was not my job to know those risk factors anyway. Your doctor may act like it is no big deal but let them know you are serious about it. Most doctors act like it is no big deal even after it happens. They tell you that in a couple weeks to a couple of months the arm will be as good as new. They get away with this because 90% of these cases do recover spontaneously on their own within a few months. However for the small percentage that do not, it is surgery and a lifetime of physical/occupational therapy and an arm that will never be 100%. I don't mean to scare you but I really wished I had known this existed. My husband and I would have made sure it was handled differently.

Ask your doctor how he/she would handle Shoulder dystocia.

Follow the link below to the United Brachial Plexus Network prevention brochure and read about the risk factors. There is also a list of questions for your OB.
http://www.ubpn.org/ubpnweb.nsf/web/prevention.pdf

Then you have taken charge of your health and the health of your baby. You can say at the end of the day you did everything in your power to bring your baby safely into the world.

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