A few years ago, when my niece was born, my sister had a severe postpartum hemorrhage. I remember getting off the phone with my mom, who had just delivered the simultaneous news of the baby’s birth and my sister’s serious condition, and feeling terrified. My sister was being taken into surgery to try to stop the bleeding. What if she died? In the U.S., deaths from postpartum hemorrhage are rare, but they do happen.
The first thing that gave me a sense of reassurance, strangely, was a search of the medical database PubMed. After I got off the phone, I sat at my laptop looking at a multicolored flow chart that summarized how to stop an obstetric hemorrhage. All of the steps taken by my sister’s medical team were listed. Although she was hundreds of miles away, I felt comforted by the knowledge that her doctors were following well-established, evidence-based guidelines for what to do.
It wasn’t until a few minutes later that I realized the flow chart was developed by doctors I know. It was part of the Obstetric Hemorrhage Toolkit, a set of guidelines published by the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC). I had first heard of the toolkit from a Stanford obstetric anesthesiologist who helped put it together, but had never imagined it might save someone in my family.
The toolkit was developed because maternal hemorrhages are rare, risky, and extremely time-sensitive. The kit gives medical teams the information they need to rehearse for, recognize and treat these hemorrhages immediately, without wasting minutes that could save the patient’s life.
Today, the CMQCC is releasing a new version of the toolkit. The update strengthens several areas of the kit, providing clearer parameters for use of certain medications and blood products and more information about how to support patients and families after a maternal hemorrhage, for instance.
And the flow chart I found calming is still there, on page 21 of this .pdf file. I’m so happy to see it again because, for me, it symbolizes the doctors, patients and families who will benefit from the kit in the future.
As for my family’s story, my mom called back later on the evening of my niece’s birth to tell me that the bleeding had stopped and my sister was recovering. Her introduction to motherhood was rougher than most, but today my sister and her daughter are fine: My favorite moment of a recent family gathering was seeing my chubby-cheeked niece racing toward me yelling “Aunnnnntie Errrrin!” with my beloved sister in hot pursuit behind her.
Previously: In poorest countries, increase in midwives could save mothers and their babies, Cardiac arrest in pregnancy: New consensus statement addresses CPR for expectant moms and Program focuses on treatment of placental disorders
Photo by bies
