This video from NBC 4 in NYC is making the round on the blogs. It tells the story of a NJ woman who discovered she had placenta percreta (placenta growing through the uterine wall) and placenta previa (placenta covers the opening of the cervix) during her pregnancy. She had 3 prior cesarean births and did not realize that they presented an increased risk for placental abnormality.
She luckily found out about the complication before birth as it would have presented an issue for increased risk of hemorrhage and/or hysterectomy. The comments from both the mother and the physician interviewed are important.
The mother comments, "if you haven't given yourself the chance at labor, you should". This is a woman with 3 previous cesareans. While we do know her circumstances exactly, we can guess that her 2nd and 3rd cesareans were scheduled. If she were given the chance to have a trial of labor and successful VBAC, her odds of developing placental abnormalities would not be as high.
And the doctor comments, "if we don't do anything about decreasing cesarean section rates in this country we are going to have a lot of mothers who are going to lose their lives". NJ had a cesarean section rate of 40% in 2009.
Update:
According to Rixa's Stand and Deliver blog, the journalist quoted the 40 deaths wrong. There were 42 maternal deaths total, with 12 of those being attributed to "preventable loss" such as placenta acreta. This is still a disturbing number of deaths.
