Placental abruption is a premature separation of the placenta from the lining of the uterus much before the baby is born or when the baby is still inside the uterus. Haemorrhage is the main concern in placental abruption. What are the symptoms that a patient is going through a process of placental abruption who is pregnant report us with. The most common symptom that they report to us is vaginal bleeding. 80% women with placental abruption have vaginal bleeding, but 20% inspite of the bleeding that is happening inside the uterus do not have vaginal bleeding. That is the condition called as conceived haemorrhage. The second most common presentation to us is with complaints of abdominal cramps. We know that the uterus is acting or the uterus is hard and stone like what we call as the uterus hypotonus. So in any women more than 20 weeks of pregnancy if they present with uterine activity, we have to be sure that we have to rule out placental abruption. The third common presentation that they come to us with is abnormal fetal movements especially deceased fetal movements and in some cases excessive fetal movements. These can be indications of a fetal jeopardy or an impending fetal death. So if we get the patients and we examine them, what are the signs that tell us that there could be a possibility of diagnosis of placental abruption? One we see a vaginal bleeding and second we see the patient is in a state of shock of the vaginal bleeding is going to be sever. What do you mean by stroke? It is a cardiovascular instability where thee pulse and the BP is very low or not recordable and when we palpate the uterus, we find that the uterus us acting or in cases of concealed haemorrhage where there is no vaginal bleeding obviosity seen we find that the size of the uterus is rapidly increasing because of the bleeding that is happening inside the uterus and when we auscultate for the baby’s heart sound, we find that the heart rate is very low called as the bradycardia or extremely high called as tachycardia and when we run the non stress test, we find that the trace is totally abnormal. So these are some of the signs and symptoms of placental abruption
