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Once your baby is born, nothing much in the whole world will matter at that point in time. The pain of labor and delivery subsides as you snuggle your newborn. But the third stage of labor remains and that is the delivery of the placenta.
Your uterus will continue to contract after your baby is born, though the pain will be substantially less intense. With these contractions the uterus is returning to its shape and size before you became pregnant and detaching the placenta from the wall of the uterus simultaneously.
In a normal scenario, the uterus contracts and the placenta detaches within the first fifteen to thirty minutes following birth. Your birth attendant who delivered your baby may apply gentle traction to the umbilical cord to facilitate delivery of the placenta. It will ease out the birth canal and feel relatively painless compared to what it was like when your baby was born.
A few things can still go wrong during this last stage of labor, though. In some instances, the placenta will not willingly release from its hold on your uterus and it will need to be gotten out a different way. This is called a retained placenta and one method of removing it is a manual removal.
A manual removal of the placenta requires that your health care provider reach his or her hand into your vagina and up into your uterus. The placenta needs to be peeled away from the wall of the uterus. Though this can be excruciatingly painful for some women, it is vital to your health and survival. If a placenta were to remain inside your uterus for an extended period of time, you would start bleeding and hemorrhage as your uterus was unable to contract down and decrease the flow of blood. It truly can be a life-threatening situation.
Pain medication can be given if the pain is too unbearable. If the manual removal is unsuccessful, it may require surgery to remove it. This is the most severe case when this happens and it truly is vital to your survival if this becomes necessary.
Reasons for retained placentas are usually unknown. Some theories hold that if a mother had a traumatic birth and her baby was taken away, underlying emotions could cause the mom to hang onto what is left of the pregnancy if her baby is not in her arms.
Sometimes Pitocin can be given to encourage the placenta to detach from the uterus but it also could clamp down so that the placenta would still not come on its own.
In the vast majority of cases the third stage of labor goes smoothly and without any difficulties. It is the completion of your pregnancy as your body begins returning to its pre-pregnant state.
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