Hello,
Thanks for posting your query at DoctorSpring.com
Betamethasone is a steroid given to pregnant women who are at risk of preterm labour, in order to enhance maturity of the lungs of the preterm baby.
It is NOT a drug given to enhance delivery .
It is given to fortify baby's chances of survival in case it is born preterm, or delivered before term, for some reason.
The effect of Betamethasone persists for 7 days, and if the baby is born after that, the doses have no effect.
Hope this answers your query.
Please write in more detail if you wish to discuss further,
Regards.
Patient replied :
Hello,
1. Please refer my previous correspondence.
2.The details asked vide my last question was in context to treatment undergone by my wife priyanka and hence require second opinion from you . She delivered preterm baby girl few days back in 28 weeks and 4 days. She had pregnancy induced hypertension ranging from 80-95/120-150 and low iron count of 9-10 ( test reports and case sheet attached, kindly bear for low quality images if any as there uploading problems with site). Rest nothing abnormal ever being noticed throughout pregnancy.
She got admitted to hospital as doctor asked her for it for monitoring her high BP on 4/10/14. Subsequently she was given certain medicines of hypertension and Betametha on 5/10/14 and 6/10/14.
On the very same night of 6/10/14 while being admitted at hospital only, she started feeling pain/ mild contractions in her stomach( no bleeding or water bag burst ever occoured). When informed to doctor, it came out by Doppler's test that baby's heartbeat was slowing down. Also after physical check up by doctor it was told to us that there is internal bleeding in womb and placental abruption has occured , hence require immediate C section.
We went as per advise and after C section baby girl of 1.1 kg was born few hours later at 0110hrs on 7/10/14.
It was told to us that there was internal bleeding/clotting of 1.4 litres. Baby was taken to NICU as she was not breathing at all. Till date baby is on ventilator support however my wife is fine now.
3. I request you to kindly advice me after having detailed look a tmy wife's case sheet that whether the course of treatment which went for her was on right track or not.
Also, kindly have a look to the medicines being given to her when she was admitted. I afraid that some wrong prescription has led to sudden delivery which could have been dalayed for a longer time.
4. Please advice in detail
Regards
Sandeep Legha.
Hello
I have gone through the reports in detail.
I can see no medication that was not appropriate for her.
Everything seems to have been done correctly as per protocol.
Steroids ( Betamethasone ) are routinely given when a preterm delivery is even slightly anticipated.
Correct medications were given for hypertension and for prematurity.
Abruption placentae ( premature separation of the placenta from the uterine wall ) is a well known complication of raised blood pressure during pregnancy.
Emergency C section was unavoidable to save the life of the mother and the baby, and prevent massive bleeding - 1.4 litres in itself is quite a huge amount of blood loss.
I have a few questions though -
1. When was hypertension first detected in pregnancy ?
2. When were medications initiated for the same ?
3. Why was she admitted in the hospital, did the BP shoot out way beyond normal then ?
Please write back with more details.
Regards.