Meconium Aspiration Syndrome (MAS)

Meconium is the stool which baby passes inside the mother's womb.It usually happens when baby is in distress,getting reduced oxygen which leads to dilatation of anus and thus passage of stool.All cases of
Meconium don't need a caesarean section but at the same time it isn't a very easy situation for the obstetrician.As the meconium starts to thicken baby can aspirate it in the lung with problems of various severity.
Last month only I did manage to deliver two ladies with thin meconium vaginally,but yes I do get stressed while waiting.It is no win situation for the doctor.If you say it calls for caesarean patients don't like it.If you wait and baby's aspirates it(no one can predict beforehand whether baby will or won't)then it is the doctor who gets all the beating.
In last two days I came across two ladies who are second time pregnant and both had bad experiences due to MAS in 1st pregnancy.First one lost her new born child and the second one has a child with Cerebral palsy.MRI of this Child done at the time of birth is suggestive of lack of oxygen during labour.Both of them were understandably sad and blamed their Gynaecologists.While as a neutral person I couldn't find fault in management of either of the doctor.It was sheer bad luck both for the doctor and the patient.
We need to understand that doctors are no God.They can try their best but after some point there is a supreme power who decides all our fates.
And after these two incidents which I came across this week,my threshold for performing caesarean following passage of meconium would be much less.