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This is more of a I-want-to-know-what-probably-happened post.
I have witnessed about 5 cats giving birth. So this was not my first time, but I definitely haven't seen enough to know immediately when something is very wrong.
This particular cat had a very healthy-looking pregnancy from the outside. An ultrasound was ordered halfway through, everything was fine. Closer to the date (about one week before) an X-ray was done, and 5 fetuses showed up. Great. We made all necessary arrangements and waited for the birth. The due date was around 9th, but we started checking her every couple hours from the 6th. She was huge and wanted lots of attention. The night before the birth, she acted weird enough for us to go into alert mode. We spent the night watching her, and at 5.30am she began to have strong visible contractions. We thought, as usual, the first kitten would be out within 20 minutes or so.
We were wrong. She continued to have contractions but there was no pushing or squatting. She was lying on her side, in visible discomfort and panting, but there was no kitten. We offered calcium supplement that the vet gave. One hour passed and we began to panic, but the earliest vet clinic opens at 8am and there was no one we could call to come over and check her. We rushed to the vet later, of course, by that time it was already well over 2 hours of ongoing contractions without any kitten.
While waiting for the vet to get oxytocin ready, the first kitten was suddenly born. This kitten also ended up being the strongest out of all 5. After administering the oxytocin, second kitten was born within 30 minutes. This second one was incredibly weak and had to be resuscitated, he later passed away a few hours later. Since there were still a few in there, the vet was concerned that the cat would take too long, which might endanger the rest of the babies, so we opted for C-section.
The C-section produced 3 more kittens, 1 whose placenta had ruptured and it died within the hour, and 2 more kittens who were very weak and unresponsive but still alive. We took all home and syringe fed the 3 survivors every couple hours. At first, they were very lethargic, unmoving, and could not swallow the formula. It took a few hours of warming up before they began to eat a little.
All seemed to be thriving well over the next 48 hours, but on the 3rd day, one of the C-Section babies suddenly faded and died. It happened within 8 hours of first sign of lethargy. She stopped feeding (she was previously the best at feeding), and 3 hours before she died, she kept passing urine/soft poo, then at the very end, there were spots of darkish red blood from her anus. She began to have respiratory problems too.
The other two (the firstborn, and one C-Section survivor) are still alive and putting on weight pretty well. It has been quite a shock because I've never experienced this before--usually the babies I witnessed die because they were too large, or legs came first and they got stuck.
I just want to know if the contractions lasting over 2 hours likely caused the fetuses to somehow end up with internal trauma? They all looked healthy from the outside and no obvious defects, the ones that died were physically even bigger than the survivors.
I have witnessed about 5 cats giving birth. So this was not my first time, but I definitely haven't seen enough to know immediately when something is very wrong.
This particular cat had a very healthy-looking pregnancy from the outside. An ultrasound was ordered halfway through, everything was fine. Closer to the date (about one week before) an X-ray was done, and 5 fetuses showed up. Great. We made all necessary arrangements and waited for the birth. The due date was around 9th, but we started checking her every couple hours from the 6th. She was huge and wanted lots of attention. The night before the birth, she acted weird enough for us to go into alert mode. We spent the night watching her, and at 5.30am she began to have strong visible contractions. We thought, as usual, the first kitten would be out within 20 minutes or so.
We were wrong. She continued to have contractions but there was no pushing or squatting. She was lying on her side, in visible discomfort and panting, but there was no kitten. We offered calcium supplement that the vet gave. One hour passed and we began to panic, but the earliest vet clinic opens at 8am and there was no one we could call to come over and check her. We rushed to the vet later, of course, by that time it was already well over 2 hours of ongoing contractions without any kitten.
While waiting for the vet to get oxytocin ready, the first kitten was suddenly born. This kitten also ended up being the strongest out of all 5. After administering the oxytocin, second kitten was born within 30 minutes. This second one was incredibly weak and had to be resuscitated, he later passed away a few hours later. Since there were still a few in there, the vet was concerned that the cat would take too long, which might endanger the rest of the babies, so we opted for C-section.
The C-section produced 3 more kittens, 1 whose placenta had ruptured and it died within the hour, and 2 more kittens who were very weak and unresponsive but still alive. We took all home and syringe fed the 3 survivors every couple hours. At first, they were very lethargic, unmoving, and could not swallow the formula. It took a few hours of warming up before they began to eat a little.
All seemed to be thriving well over the next 48 hours, but on the 3rd day, one of the C-Section babies suddenly faded and died. It happened within 8 hours of first sign of lethargy. She stopped feeding (she was previously the best at feeding), and 3 hours before she died, she kept passing urine/soft poo, then at the very end, there were spots of darkish red blood from her anus. She began to have respiratory problems too.
The other two (the firstborn, and one C-Section survivor) are still alive and putting on weight pretty well. It has been quite a shock because I've never experienced this before--usually the babies I witnessed die because they were too large, or legs came first and they got stuck.
I just want to know if the contractions lasting over 2 hours likely caused the fetuses to somehow end up with internal trauma? They all looked healthy from the outside and no obvious defects, the ones that died were physically even bigger than the survivors.
