Because 35-year-old Kim Kardashian is a reality star, after she gave birth on Saturday, followers not only learned of the news right away. After just a few hours, they also knew that the second child of Kim by partner Kanye West would be named Saint West.

Less known is beside the second-time mother suffering from excruciating pain while delivering her first son, after she gave birth naturally, doctors needed two extra hours to deal with her delivery problems. Hollywoodlife reports that she suffered from placenta accreta.

Placenta accrete happens when the placenta abnormally attaches to the uterine wall. When the placenta attaches in the uterine wall, the condition is called placenta increta, and if it attaches through the uterine wall, it is called placenta percreta. Medical science has no explanation why some women develop the condition.

The only known fact about it is that “there is some abnormality in the area where the fertilized egg implants.” A prior surgery on the uterus, such as a Caesarian section, increases the risk of an accreta.

Kim had the same condition when she gave birth to baby North in 2013 which is why doctors advised her to deliver her second baby by Caesarian section, but she insisted on vaginal birth. Dr Bruce Lee, a Beverly Hills doctor, recommended having the C-section at 38 weeks for doctors to have better control of a possible massive bleeding that could result from placenta accreta.

Lee estimated a few weeks before Kim gave birth that the average blood lost during vaginal bleeding from placenta accreta is between 3,000 and 5,000 millilitres. Blood transfusion would eventually be required. Prior to her delivery, Kim had said she would likely have her uterus removed to address the expected re-occurrence of placenta accreta.

In other cases, the life-threatening placenta accreta could be the result of mandatory repeat Caesarians on women to avoid uterine rupture caused by vaginal birth after caesarian (VBAC), according to Scienceandsensibility. Although the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the National Institutes of Health say that VBAC is a safe, reasonable and appropriate choice for most women, half of American hospitals ban the procedure.

In 2012, the ACOG estimated that up to seven percent of women with accreta would die from it. Babies also die from accreta because of the very high rate of pre-term delivery, with 43 percent of accreta babies weighing less than 5.5 lb.

However, Kim survived accreta and Saint weighed 8 lb and 1 ounce, which could indicate the baby number 2, like his mum, could also be a potential reality star in the making, basing on the medical drama that ensued when he came out into the world.

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