Well, a lot of things come to mind, but none of them are particularly clinical.
Was this a teaching hospital? Because those are known for their performance of unnecessary procedures in the name of “education”, with the mothers as unknowing guinea pigs.
My first was at a teaching hospital (which I fount out afterward). That might explain a few things.

Except it has happened, of course usually with forceful uterine contraction in an effort to expel the fetus – not with cord traction.

That’s exactly what I need to hear while I still have someone poking and prodding at my whooha after pushing a baby out…

Frankly, I laughed after reading that because the question is just goofy. It would NOT be funny if I had been on the receiving end of said procedure and hearing that.

“Well, she could die from blood loss, so we’d have to do everything in our power to stop the bleeding, providing manual compression of her uterus while trying to reinsert it into her body, and possibly leading to a hysterectomy. But on the bright side, tugging on the cord might save us ten minutes! So, haul away!”

Is it possible the resident was trying to gently let the attending know cord traction isn’t necessary? I hope it is. Really really hope it.

Well, you could ask a good friend of mine, whose uterus DID come out while using traction to remove the placenta immediately after birthing her daughter.

I actually like this question, I mean yeah probably frightened the mother, but I’m guessing this is a resident and has freshly learned that an OB can in fact pull the uterus out while doing that, and hopefully it embarrassed the OB enough to maybe stop or rethink doing that. Forceful pulling on the cord to detach the placenta should be a REALLY BIG NO NO. This OB needs to learn more patience, hell, my placenta took 3 hours to come out!

That’s what happened to me during my c-section. OB applied “gentle traction” (as printed in the OR report) and pulled my uterus inside out.

I just recently had an OB say you will need a C-Section because your baby is too long.

In an older copy of Williams Obstetrics there is a pic of a mom who died from her uterus being turned inside out (placenta acreta I believe, book isn’t here) and the caption that this was the result of a home birth gone bad. What they don’t tell ya is that the woman was transported to the hospital alive and fine till the DOCTORS yanked and yanked till THEY did that!!!!!!!!!! But remember, the doc ALWAYS has your best interest at heart, the stories I could tell regarding botched doc “cures” and what happened afterward……

This was mine, this happened after my completely unmedicated fast child birth of my second baby. For me this birth was a healing experience from my first son’s birth that was filled tons of interventions some needed some not. All went wonderfully well up until this point. The only reason the student and the resident were in the room was because the ob that was on call from my practice didn’t make it in time (I didn’t like him much anyways) he was in the hospital but they couldn’t find him and there was no stopping me from pushing other wise I wouldn’t have had them in the room to begin with once the ob got there he just sat in the corner of the room and watched them do their thing making random comments about other things. Had I have known they were pulling the cord like they were to get the placenta out I would have told them to stop but I didn’t realize they were doing it, I thought they were just waiting down there. Because of their impatience and pulling it out so forcefully it caused me to bleed very badly after it was out to the point where I had to have VERY painful uterine massages (it was the most painful part of the whole birth) because I was producing such large blood clots they also had to give me a shot of something to help the bleeding stop along with a pit drip all night long. Needless to say it was pretty scary along with hearing that to begin with it wasn’t too fun.

I have seen this one time in 20 years and it was from an OB in the middle of the night in a hurry.
At the facility I work at, we have the 30 minute rule except with the very premature infants and we wait. I’ve never heard of waiting for 3 or 24 hours on a term placenta. I’d be interested in knowing more. Back to the patient I mentioned. It’s called inversion of the uterus (the uterus is now inside out and the area where the placenta was at, if it has detached, is exposed and bleeding and it is an Obstetrical emergency. As Jane mentioned, the uterus is forced back into the body with the MD’s fist at the site where the placenta was and his other hand is on the woman’s abd where the uterus is massaging in an attempt to get the uterus to clamp down and stop the bleeding otherwise we could end up in the OR doing a hysterectomy to save mom’s life. This young woman I spoke of didn’t have to have a hysterectomy but she certainly gave new meaning to the term, white girl and this was after several units of blood. I couldn’t say anything but the look I gave the MD said “I know your mama dropped you on your head when you were a baby.”

I was the one who heard this. The Resident (female) was pulling the Med Student (female) asked the question. The idiot OB (male) was muttering in the corner.

I can tell you that I nearly passed out in the corner shortly after this. We, the poster Jen and I, lost a classmate in childbirth that was never fully explained other than “she bled out”.

I was terrified as I sat in the corner, watching the awesome L&D nurse weigh pads full of blood, that my best friend was dying, all because they had pulled on her son’s cord.

The Med student was very smart and decided to approach the OB Resident from a question angle instead of confrontation. Some OBGYNs will just wait for that gush of blood and lengthening of the cord to assist a placenta that has given us signs of detaching. Others however,will apply steady traction on the cord. Most OBGYNs wait for the delivery of the placenta before giving pitocin. There is a growing group that will give pitocin prior to delivery of the placenta to cause the uterus to clamp down thus constricting blood vessels speeding release of the placenta and decrease the liklihood of post partum hemorrhage. Hemorrhage can be caused by several things like inversion of the uterus, laceration of the cervix or vagina, blood disorders involving clotting and then there’s “we have absolutely no idea why” group but anything like a placenta that gave us problems or a uterus goes directly to pathology. We are a superstitous group in that if we see a true fair skin woman with natural red hair, we all groan because it seems they always have those tiny baby viens and always bleed heavily or hemorrhage. There was no excuse for that happening with your OBGYN present. I am so sorry for the loss of your friend. Please tell me they took her to the OR to remove her uterus. I couldn’t have stayed in the room, God what a horrible memory.

This happened to me after the birth of my son. My son was delivered and the cord was cut and my Dr began pulling on the cord. Twice I asked him if everything was ok because I could not understand why he was pulling. Exhausted from the birth I just trusted he knew what he was doing. Suddenly he said “we have a medical emergency and you have to push now” I pushed and remember thinking that it felt like an awful lot came out. My entire uterus came out inside out and was between my legs. My dr tried two times to manually push it back in with his fist. I screamed for him to stop. I literally felt like I was screaming for my life. I was rushed into emergency surgery my uterus put back in and was given blood transfusions. All of this because the dr couldn t wait for the placenta to detach on its own.

I am so happy I found this blog, I had my daughter four years ago. Minutes after I had my daughter the doctor delivered my placenta. About 5 minutes after that, I started seeing spots and my vision started to fade in an out. When I asked the doctor about the spots he said it was due to my hormone levels dropping and it would pass. About 15 minutes later my friend went screaming for help because I was gushing blood onto the floor and fading away. A nurse came back in the room and started yelling for help saying that I was coding, she got on my stomach and put her knees on me to stop the bleeding. The doctor came back in with more nurses who pumped me full of pitocin. First my doctor told me that I had an incompetent uterus. My husband and I were really afraid to try and have another, neither of us want to risk my death due to an incompetent uterus. I called my Dr. to ask his opinion on if we should try for another and I thought it was interesting when he got on the phone after reviewing my chart he said that I had a random case of uterine acne and it shouldn’t happen again. I went to web md to see what uterine acne was only to find nothing. When I googled my situation, I found this discussion thread to be eerily similar to my experience. It makes me want to cry, he almost killed me.

Jamie,
What you described sounds a lot like a Post Partum Hemorrhage due to uterine atony. The uterus doesn’t contract down after delivery of the placenta. The area where the placenta was is now open and bleeding from blood vessels exposed. Uterine atony can occur without the uterus coming out. Your doctor called it random meaning we don’t know why it happened, it just did. Sometimes this can occur due to being induced for several days and the uterus has contracted so much that come delivery it’s worn out. Then there are the red haired, fair skin women that for some reason seem to bleed more than other women or it can be from a cervical laceration. It could also be from an inverted uterus (uterus comes out of the body turned inside out) as described with this thread but I honestly don’t think this is what happened to you because an inverted uterus occurs with the placenta, the OB would have had his whole arm and fist in your uterus putting it back into your body. I’m sure there are many other reasons for a PPH I’m unaware of. It seems to me from what you described you had a PPH and came close to needing to have CPR from loss of blood. Thank God for good friends that can run and scream. Your nurse was wise to call for help; the more people in an emergency the better. No wonder you and your husband were afraid to try again. That had to have been the scariest moment in your lives. Jamie, you can request a copy of your medical record from the hospital to review the notes for a more comprehensive idea of what happened. This is a great site for women. It is educational and the women are very supportive of each other. I also recommend the site “Childbirth Connections.” Best of luck to you and your husband. On a last note, Please see that with your next baby your OB is aware of your PPH so they will be more watchful of you at delivery.
Thea