Labor is obviously a very intense process, but one woman made headlines recently when her EYE actually POPPED OUT during childbirth. Today I’ll go over some of the most common eye injuries sustained by mother AND child during childbirth.
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Bethany Collins a woman in the UK recently made headlines for her TickTock where she described her eye popping out during labor. In today’s video let’s talk about some of the things that can happen to the eyes of both mom and baby in the course of childbirth.
What can happen to Mom?
Luxated globe - Luxation refers to forward displacement of the eyeball and it may actually be spontaneous or voluntary. It’s possible for globalization to occur during extreme pushing as may occur in childbirth. When Roblox says it can be gently placed back into place and patience will typically do very well and recover within a couple of weeks.
This is the course that Bethany Collins seemed to have had, per her tick tock it took her several weeks and her eye and periorbital area was pretty swollen but overall she recovered really well and didn't lose any vision.
Is It Possible for Your Eyes to Pop Out During Delivery?
Now a second type of complications from labor are macular hemes; just as it's possible to burst a blood vessel in the front of your eye while pushing, it's also possible to burst blood vessels in the back of the eye. This is particularly common in the macula of the eye and can result in reduced vision that comes back slowly as the blood re-absorbs into the eye.
Preeclampsia can occur usually at the end of pregnancy and is known to cause retinal vascular changes and visual symptoms including blurred vision photopsia or light sensitivity diplopia or double vision or even blindness.
One Canadian study in 2017 tracked more than 1 million Canadian women between 1989 and 2013 about 6% of those women were diagnosed with preeclampsia and researchers found that women with preeclampsia had a 1.6 times higher risk of retinal detachment and nearly double the risk of other retinal diseases, including retinal breaks and diabetic retinopathy. So over time having pre-eclampsia can put you at higher risk of these eye conditions.
I alluded to "subconjunctivals" earlier but subconjunctival hemorrhages are by far the most common ocular finding after childbirth in the mother is what’s called a sub conjunctival hemorrhage. A subconjunctival hemorrhage occurs in the front of the eye and happens when one of the tiny little capillaries within the conjunctiva burst suddenly.
Subconjunctival hemorrhages happen very commonly if you're holding your breath and pushing whether that's lifting weights or having a baby it's very possible to pop a blood vessel in your eye and cause a subconjunctival. The good news about the subconscious is that they look much worse than they actually are and given some time the blood will reabsorb into the eye and go away and your eye will look the same as it did before labor.
What Can Happen to a baby?
Just as mom's eyes can sort of pop out, it is possible to have a luxated or even an evolved globe just as mom can have this
happen so can a child and it's more common in vaginal deliveries involving forceps or some other intervention. In rare cases a globe can’t even become adults which means that the optic nerve is severed and that of course results in a much worse outcome for the baby's vision then if the globe is simply luxated and able to be placed back into the socket.
The most common complication after childbirth for babies is an eye infection as the baby passes through the birth canal; it's possible for bacterial pathogens to enter the eye. One such infection that's possible is a gonorrhea infection which obviously has to be because there's a gonorrhea infection in the mother but that can be very devastating to babies' eyes and this is part of the reason why babies are given antibiotic ointment right after birth.
Overall the risk of globalization or other eye problems during childbirth is very low. So if you’re watching this prior to your own labor and delivery please do not spiral, please do not freak out this is just simply for information and for education. If you you're here because you did have a “subcon” after labor which is the most common thing to have happen just know that that will go away and if it's not going away definitely reach out to your eye care provider for more instructions.
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