Emergency C Section

Anna was put outside before the walk and during the walk I noticed her laying down. She was not rolling or looked to be in labor. Later this morning she was laying down in the field again and by 9:00 am her water broke. I got her into the foaling stall in the barn, put down straw and waited. Within a few minutes I knew she was in trouble. Joan and her kids were called and they came right over to help. Only 1 hoof was protruding, the foal was not presenting correctly. Both Joan and I tried to find the other hoof and head of the foal but could not. Dr. Hoerr was called.  He found the foal's head was under the other leg but not in a position that he would be able to pull it out. Believe me he tried and tried.

 At this point the foal was alive but the heart beat getting slow. Our only option was to do an immediate emergency C section to try to save both of them. Joan and quickly I milked a lot of colostrum out for the expected foal as Dr. Hoerr was getting everything ready for surgery.   Before Dr. Hoerr started the C Section he sedated Anna and tried one more time to get the foal in the correct position.

 Anna came to help and she, Joan and Dr. Hoerr got Anna the mare in position for C section surgery. 

 Chris arrived with more drugs and sterile water for the surgery. Dr. Hoerr had the foal within minutes but as he was pulling the foal out it died. The camera was put down at that point as I was needed to help pull the foal out and try to get it breathing. Dr. Hoerr gave the foal nose to mouth resuscitation but we could not get the heart beating.  The foal was left and Dr. Hoerr started working on Anna first removing the placenta before closing. 

 Joan needed to get on sterile gloves to help hold the uterus in place for Dr. Hoerr to stitch it up. 

 Anna was also needed, below she is getting her sterile gloves on. 

 Below are the final stitches. 

 As soon as Dr. Hoerr was finished stitching her, the leg ropes were removed and Anna rolled over. 

It took a while for her to wake up and when she did she struggled to stand falling into the stall wall a couple of times but was up by 2:00 pm.  There is a lot of drainage coming from her belly so that will be wrapped in a couple hours.  This was not a fun morning and the loss of her beautiful pitch black filly is a hard loss for us and not a very good start to our foaling season.  Mark will need to get his tractor out to bury the foal. We are praying that Anna will not become infected. She was given a lot of antibiotics and we will continue those. We should know within a few days if she will recover but it will not be an easy few days.  Anna will need a lot of care. Today I'm wondering if maybe I'm too old to be in the business.