Prolonged labour can have serious consequences for both mothers and newborns, highlighting the importance of timely and skilled maternity care. [iStockphoto]
For 12 years now, after giving birth to her firstborn daughter, Evelyne Nyabeta has never known the real happiness most women experience as new mothers.
During her delivery, the baby was exhausted, docile and struggling to breathe, an occurrence that rang emergency bells in the entire newborn unit of the hospital.
Instead of the delivery becoming the beginning of happy motherhood, the coming of Scarlet Regina marked another start of frustrations associated with multiple disabilities that happened to the newborn child following prolonged pangs of labour.
According to Fred Ombachi, a gynaecologist based in Nakuru, prolonged labour has far-reaching impacts on both the unborn baby and mother if not attended to urgently.
According to Dr Ombachi, when labour has been prolonged, the possibility of the baby suffering multiple complications rises depending on the duration of delay.
“In extreme cases, mothers experience stillbirths, meaning that the baby dies in the womb, and in some other situations, the mother’s life may be on the line too. But usually, prolonged labour brings with it health challenges to both the newborn and the mother,” Dr Ombachi says.
For mothers, according to Dr Ombachi, postpartum bleeding, injuries to both the uterus and the birth canal, including tearing and swelling, problems with the urinary or bowel movement, as well as fistula in severely neglected cases.