Complex umbilical cord entanglement

Abstract

We describe three cases of complex umbilical cord entanglement seen in the past 5 years at our Placenta Clinic. The cases were associated with intermittent fetal bradycardia, reduced fetal movements, and were all delivered prematurely with multiple umbilical cord loops around the neck, limbs, or body. One intrauterine fetal death occurred. Placental pathology showed downstream effects of cord occlusion and fetal thrombotic vasculopathy.

Keywords::

• Umbilical cord entanglement
• fetal bradycardia
• placenta and cord pathology

Declaration of Interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest.