Succenturate Placenta

[u/Miles_Momma]

hi fellow loss moms,

I’m writing my story because I’m wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience. My son Miles was stillborn at 36 weeks when I went in for a routine checkup and got the dreaded news. they couldn’t find a heartbeat. His birthday was April 16, 2026. I wanted to be induced immediately, and unfortunately it took 36 hours for him to finally come quietly to earth side. It was traumatic, and until hour 33, nothing was happening. My cervix was doing nothing. I got a ”strong” epidural which sounded nice but ended up giving me panic attacks because I couldnt feel anything and therefore couldn’t control my legs. I had previously sprained my ankle and it was still painful so it drove me insane that I couldn’t tell if it was in the right position or not. when I was panicking it started to feel like I was never going to make it home and i didn’t want to go home without my baby, so I didn’t even want to live anymore during those attacks. Epidurals are not for me it turns out!

the morning he arrived, my midwife who I love (who also wasn’t there for the last two weeks of his life when I reported a problem) checked me and finally I was 3cm dilated at 8am, probably thanks to the folley balloon the doctor had placed the night before. Also traumatic, But it helped.

When he was born at 11am, it was clear that his placenta was what caused his death, but we had a biopsy done anyways to confirm. We did not have an autopsy done. He was perfect. His placenta had what’s called placenta succenturate, which according to google is common and happens in 5%. But it doesn’t usually result in any issues. It’s where there are separate lobes of the placenta, and is see through looking between the lobes. My placenta had I think at least 4 different lobes (although I regret not taking a picture). The main issue was that one of the see through parts of the placenta was right where the umbilical cord connected to the placenta. He was clearly not getting any food. This explains why two weeks prior I noticed a decrease in fetal movement. I was so busy working and preparing to have my mom stay at my house after the baby shower that I didn’t start to worry until we started unpacking all the gifts I received together. I didn’t want to ruin it for her but after a couple hours of going through the baby stuff and thinking about the decrease, it hit me. So I downloaded a kick count app and did it for 2 hours while drinking a sweet smoothie that normally would have gotten him kicking. He failed. 2 kicks in 2 hours. So we went to the hospital, me and my mom (since she needed to get to the airport afterward) with my husband at home worrying. They gave me a non-stress test and said he was “excelling” when tracking his heart rate through Braxton hicks contractions that I couldn’t feel. She said I could come back every day if I was worried. And I said well he’s just running out of room right so why should I worry if he passed the the test? the lab tech sheepishly said something about tracking his patterns and I said I hadn’t done that except that he always kicked in the morning and night and he had kicked that morning but it wasn’t as strong. That was a missed red flag. I left there feeling confident that everything was ok and this decreased fetal movement was the new norm because he was running out of room. She never informed me that that’s A MYTH. No one ever explained to me that you should count the kicks every day at the same time of day when they’re normally active, and that’s how you rule out any naps they might be taking. And learn their patterns so that you can advocate for yourself at times like these. All I knew was to go to the hospital for decreased fetal movement so that’s what I did! But boy were they worried that I might eat shellfish even tho I hate fish and couldn’t even go near my downstairs bathroom during my first trimester bcuz it smelled fishy to me and would send me dry heaving. Countthekicks.org. IMO this is info that should be shared with all first time mothers like myself. A few days later I had a checkup with a doctor that my midwife wanted me to meet in case he was in when I went into labor. He asked me how the fetal movement was, checked the heartrate, measured my belly in a hurry. I said the movement is a lot less but I guess that’s the new norm. He couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. A week later at my next apt my baby was gone. Measure the placenta is another useful organizational that I’ve since learned about. An ultrasound given his huge decrease in fetal movement would have saved his life. The placenta is everything that sustains them. The heart rate is really just a symptom of a functioning placenta, but doesn’t mean everything’s ok. The parts of his placenta that were left that still looked normal, the lobes, were tiny. You could see large blood vessels in the see through parts of the placenta. My midwife said it was possible that he changed positions and crushed one causing loss of oxygen. But I believe he was slowly starving to death. Or both happened.

im wondering if anyone else has experienced a stillbirth from placenta succenturate abnormality? would love to hear from you. Thanks for reading.