STUD NOTES

CASE HISTORY: EXTRA LONG UMBILICAL CORD

I had something special to tell Rick when I’d finished delivering this foal. It was 8:36pm when I called him over the radio saying I had just had a still born foal as a result of premature placental separation. The mare was in fact 11 days over her due date and under full night watch supervision, but she still had not bagged up like a mare ready for foaling and we were both a little surprised she was interrupting dinner. Rick’s response was that it was bad luck this had happened to a mare and owner we both liked a lot. But that wasn’t the reason he was called; I had seen something new! He just had to come and have a look.

Examining the mare in the standing position the placenta had already perforated of its own accord, so I was in fact unaware that this was a premature placental separation, which usually presents as a closed ‘red bag’. The very first thing I saw was umbilical cord coming from her vulva, and plenty of it. The feet had not even appeared. That had to be a problem. Having a good dig around the feet and head were indeed where they should have been, but getting around all this cord was very frustrating. There was no doubt on my examination I was probably delivering a dead foal, but I was not aware that the result of this event a stillborn is indeed nearly always the case.

As this was a spontaneous event for the mare, she was not going to go down, and so a standing delivery was how it was to be. This was still an emergency delivery as far as I was concerned, so I just got in there and whipped the foal out as quickly as practicable. With a holder on the head of the mare I was jammed up against the wall (which was a good thing as I was able to use it whilst I was on one leg, the other high on her rump for leverage) things were all organised with ropes on feet. For extra help I asked the holder to slowly try and walk the mare forward for me whilst I maintained traction.  The cord was creating problems by intruding on the space of the delivery canal being larger and fatter than usual, making this a very tight fit. As the foal presented, and with the mare continuing to walk forward all this cord just unravelled in front of our eyes lying itself out on the stable floor and finally the full placenta flopped out. It was obvious that the foal was dead, and had been for quite a bit which was unfortunate. The photo was taken at this point, just as it was. Premature placental separation was confirmed by the fact that the cord was still attached to the foal and the placenta came out immediately after the foal. Note that the placenta looks very red and quite large.

Normal umbilical length is approx 35-85cm. The oxygen bottle, which was on hand and is the black bottle in the straw next to the foal, is 36 cm high. This cord measured approximately 195cm, that’s two metres!

I haven’t managed to find the technical term for this event yet, but extra long umbilical cord will have to do for this case history. In retrospect I have probably seen a few longer than usual cords, but nothing as in your face as this. You just don’t stop learning!

This event has been given a mention in the article on abortion.