Yay! Caesareans! I can say that because I’ve been lucky enough to help with a few since starting my nursing career, and they have all resulted in live puppies…. Fingers crossed the luck continues! 
On a Thursday night a lovely Yellow Labrador went into labour, only to have it stop by 7am the next morning. Unfortunately, she had only given birth to one stillborn pup, and her owner knew there were a lot more where that one had come from. After a few hours of not pushing, her owner was worried. She came in to visit us, and we thought she needed a bit of help. We give all of our expectant mothers a drug that helps induce contractions in the hope that we wont need to do surgery, but she wasn’t responsive to it. She also had one pup stuck in her pelvis which couldn’t be taken out by hand, so while myself and the surgeon finished off our list of routine surgery, the vet who was looking after her got her onto an IV drip and prepped her for surgery.
We had masses of towels at the ready, clamps soaking, syringes and the few drugs we use if the pups need extra care to help them into the world. The vet and nurse (not me, I got to do the fun part – wait for pups to come!) anaesthetised her, got her opened up and started bring out the babies one by one.
“Puppy! Who wants it?!” We had towels at the ready for her to lower it into, and swept it next door. They come out still in the sac with the placenta attached, and we have to do what the mother would do (the human way – I’m not licking that thing!). We open the sac, and rub them with a towel to stimulate them. This usually gets the lungs going, and we also wrap them up in the towel and gently swing them to help clear any fluid. We syringe out anything that’s left, and keep on rubbing them to get them dry and warm. We put a clamp onto the umbilical cord, tied it and snipped it off… They were free!
Look at this face! So cute…. And breathing all by himself 🙂
“More puppies!” The vet was laughing, saying the one stuck in the uterus was trying to crawl out – they were all big and really active! We had to put them in a cat cage because they all squeaking furiously and trying to crawl off the table. I had three to look after, two other vets had 5 between them and then we had a vet student looking after our last little critter. They were all doing well, except for one. No matter what we tried, it wasn’t to be 
So 7 out of 9 puppies made it in the end, a pretty good (and cute) outcome
We checked the pups over for abnormalities and sexed them – 4 boys and 3 girls! We gave them an injection of nutrients to help them until they could have a feed – mum was stitched up, but was still too sleepy to have them near her yet. Once she was awake enough, we let her have a sniff of her babies and started latching them on. We only had room for 4 at a time, and we had to do a bit of finger-leading to get them on – not the boys though! The boys would sniff the teat out and suckle like there was no tomorrow, whereas the girls were a bit slower. After all their little bellies were full we packaged them back into their cat cage and moved mum through to the kennels to recover. They all went home that evening to a happy owner – a job well done I think! If you want to read more about C – Sections we have performed, click “Pip – We Saved a Life“.
The Vets Minion... 