my bitch was due last saturday. iwas in touch with the vet before her due date. and she was happy with her.i did express my concern she was going  overdue . she went into labour monday .and had her first puppy on tuesday am .delivered two live puppys then one dead one then two more live ones thhen spent a lot of time pushing with no effect taken to the vet given oxitocin with no result. given a xray which showed more puppys and had a c/s one more dead pup which was blocking thinks up then four more live pups  brought her home and by the next day she was panting curled in a ball restless starting to contract back to the vet at two in the morning.to be told she had a retained placenta i said but she had a c/s the vet said its now practice to leave in two afterbirths to encourge the body to contract and pass them natuaruly. he then had to do a second op to remove them two g/a in 48hrs the stess she has gone through what a stuipid idiea this is i was concered from the word go if they had done the c/s first we might have saved the two pups she had to go all the way through labour then ended up with a c/s when she was so worn out  then to have another op is just to much i did ask if they had had any previous problems with this and they had two bitches needing ops she is now on anti bois which could upset the pups and if it had became infected i would have ended up having her spayed. has anyone else come across this new idiea

Hope your bitch is ok now and happy with her puppies .

yes thank you she has a sore throut with being tubed and is coughing is still panting buteverying crossed things will now settle

Has to be a male vet who did that!! And what a stupid idea when you're already in the dog!! I understand the contractions would in theory then shrink the uterus down but they bloomin' hurt!! Seems a complete pointless risk to run you should write to RCVS and ask why this should be considered a safe practice as we never did anything of the like at any ofthe vets I worked at. You need to leave a clean op site and I wouldn't class that a clean opsite if tissue is left behind.

> as we never did anything of the like at any ofthe vets I worked at

Maybe not but it is never hurts to reavaluate practice :)  I don't think the issue of pain is the important one, that is what analgesia is for :), if the vet is deciding on the basis that the risk of, say, post partum haemorrhage is reduced by allowing the placentas to stimulate oxytocin it may be justified. 
The people to ask whether or not there has been any malpractice would indeed be the BVA.
Googling did show up a couple of forum threads in the USA mentioning vets doing this, interesting enough followed by howls of protest from forum members who had not come across it before.
I think I would keep an open mind as mention of two other bitches requiring further surgery at the same practice suggests it is maybe a high risk strategy.
Perhaps something to discuss with ones own vet when the question of c section arises before allowing them to decide on this course of action.

The pain is after pains which GA or not occur when the uterus contracts and increase when feeding. And I would imagine they haven't given any further pain relief for the bitch due to the pups. To have a C/S and then have the womb reopened again could easily have interferred with the womb shrinking back down. To say nothing of the bitch bonding etc

I was a vet nurse and yes practise changes but not always for the better rather like neutering at 6 months another american idea, an idea which is now rapidly being reversed.

We are looking at vaccines and whether they really need repeating asmuch as we do that is great as doesneed changing and can be monitored properly with blood tests etc. Birth has a bad habit of either going well or really really badly. Not worth the risk on adog who's opened up already. Doesn't happen in humans either as infection risk and actually can stop the womb shrinking and lead to excessive bleeding. Excessive scar tissue from the wounds can also lead to the womb not shrinking or excessive amounts of clotting along the line ofthe scar as well.

I have a breed that is prone to needing sections, so I have to admit that I have never, ever let a bitch go over her date.  It may well be suitable for some breeds, but not for my tiny breed.

My vet has never left anything behind, and I wouldn't want him to.  But your worry about antibiotics is unfounded if your vet has given one that is suitable for lactating bitches.  There are definitely antibiotics that won't hurt the pups.

I would be changing my vet - sorry.  I expect my vet to talk me through every single aspect prior to my bitch entering the operating room.  It is part of what I pay for.

I am aware what causes the pain.  My point was that can be dealt with so it does not really come into the equation. I am also aware of the risks of further surgery but if that is less than the risk of PPH for example then it may be clinically justified.  I really don't know but would wish to keep an open mind and listen to what evidence my vet had rather than feel bound by previous custom and practice.

Doesn't the pups' suckling cause the womb to contract?   This is the cause of the after pains and panting ;)   (I well recall being told this when I had my first child.)

So can't see why the need to leave afterbirths in a C-section ?  

In a normal birth we look to see if all placentas have been expelled as retained placentas can be a cause of infection, so why would leaving them in be beneficial?.

Cesarean is not a normal birth so perhaps it has been found that this practice stimulates the body to react in a more normal way perhaps not just in reducing the uterus but maybe making lactation more reliable .  I really don't know but the alternative to supposing they have evidence to support a change of practice is to think they are doing this on a whim.  Which would be rather odd wouldn't it?  Much easier to continue with your usual practice I would have thought.

Hmmm

But I recently have read on CDs that they have begun vasectomising dogs instead of castration and tube tying bitches instead of speying - to what purpose?

Speying has always been touted as better for the bitch as she won't get Pyo or mammary tumours.   Castration has always been touted as better for the dog as he won't get testicular cancer, so what has changed here?

No idea :) although I would have said spaying and castration have been "touted" primarily as a means of preventing unwanted litters. 
Perhaps they are now offering these alternatives due to customer demand as many people seem concerned these days with the side effects of removing hormone production.

These procedures can be done at a young age without affecting the hormones which influence so much more in the maturing pup than being able to reproduce. If they wish then the full neuter can be done when adult.

Breeders who advocate this get them done before rehoming when they are going as pets,far better than full Neuter at 8weeks which some breeders do routinely.

I don't agree with leaving placentas behind at C/Sections,opening the uterus gives enough risk of infection without leaving behind tissue to become infected as it breaks down and decomposes.

thanks for the feed back   she now has a bad discharge infected but the a/b are working slowly  but we have the added problem of a hacking cough with loads of flem /oweing to being tubed twice in 24hrs which is putting her of eating she has been given a /i for this as she is already on a/b . just hope this throat infection does not pass on to the pups fingers crossed in spite of everything they are thriveing 6days old today she is still being a good mum.

Sorry to hear she isn't better.

I hope you are not being charged for all this extra treatment she would not have needed if they had removed all the placentas first time around.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you, keep us posted.

Hmmm... so vets doing the snip then going on to fully neuter. Could money be the root of this?? That way breeders keep the lines to themselves and vets get twice the price as 2 ops will no doubt be done. As I have no quibble in mymind vets will then talk about cancers etc as being the reason to fully neuter, something they have done for years on mammary cancer and testicular cancer.

Do vets have the info at hand? Not always how sometimesthings are done for experiment how else do we progress? Pavlo's dogs?? Insulin?? How did he figure it out? Took out body parts, hey presto we can treat diabetes!!

As for pain relief the use of nsaids is contraindictated in pregnant/lactating bitches, and I hope for this vets sake they haven't prescribed it or he's well and truely up for the high jump. Post op pain is what I am talking about and after my own C/S it bloomin' hurts everytime you feed, when the womb shrinks,takes your breath away!!

I hope your bitch is back to her usual self very shortly but change vets after this, it's private health care and you wouldn't pay a human doctor for this treatment. As a vet nurse all I can say is there are vets and there are vets. Mine I trust but others are disgraceful, I have seen vets miss gastric torsions, broken legs, busted eye sockets!! Even on x-ray!!! It was me that dragged him back to the light box to look again!!

>Post op pain is what I am talking about and after my own C/S it bloomin' hurts everytime you feed, when the womb shrinks,takes your breath away!!

My post-caesarian experience was totally different; I had NSAIDs for the first 2 days but didn't need anything after that, and the contraction of the uterus was no worse than period pain.

> and tube tying bitches instead of speying

I've not heard of tube tying bitches, but it could be that you read about an ovariectomy where the ovaries are removed but the uterus left.  The benefits are a much less invasive surgery with fewer complications, removing only the ovaries rather than the ovaries and the uterus and because the ovaries (and hormones) are removed it removes the risk of pyometra.

> As for pain relief the use of nsaids is contraindictated in pregnant/lactating bitches

Ibuprofen is regarded as safe for human mothers as the quantities passed into milk is so minimal but of course I am not familiar with veterinary protocols.  The uterus has to reduce whatever the delivery and, if my understanding is correct, this technique is employed precisely to bring that about quickly.  Not just reducing the uterus of course, there is also the issue as to whether manually tearing a placenta from a uterine wall is likely to lead to excess bleeding as it does not allow for the natural process of vasoconstriction that occurs when the uterus contracts and expels the placentra naturally.

Still keeping an open mind but have not heard anything to suggest to me that this method is totally whacky. If this leads to a safer recovery then I think a bit of extra pain could be justified.

I'm not sure why a placenta left following cesaerian is regarding as an greater infection risk.  Surely it will only be so if the uterus fails to contract and expel it.......just as in a vaginal deliver.

I think there were failings here but were they failings in the choice of technique or a lack of effective analgesia and client information on post operation care and observation?

I certainly think, for a nurse from a distance to suggest changing vets is rather unjustified and perhaps a little unprofessional.

>it could be that you read about an ovariectomy where the ovaries are removed but the uterus left.  The benefits are a much less >invasive surgery with fewer complications, removing only the ovaries rather than the ovaries and the uterus and because the >ovaries (and hormones) are removed it removes the risk of pyometra.

It may well be that, but is this really safer that ovario hysterectomy?

On these boards we have had reports of bitches having ovarian tissue left in and resulting 'seasons'   We have also heard of stump pyo where a bitch is fully speyed.   If the bitch has had removal of ovaries, but still has a womb how can we be sure that a womb infection would not be discounted just because the bitch has been 'speyed' ?

As for the surgery being less invasive, once you're in looking for ovaries, surely it's better to get everything?   There are risks with every anaesthetic so why risk two when one could do both jobs?

> As for the surgery being less invasive, once you're in looking for ovaries, surely it's better to get everything? 

As JenP says the risks are much less.  The uterus has a well connected blood supply the ovaries do not.
As I understand it this procedure is really quite common now and doesn't appear to be presenting the problems you fear.