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  Discussion on Delivery tore the vaginal wall
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Posted on Saturday, Apr 20, 2002 - 10:23 am:

Hello Dr. O,
over six weeks ago my mare started to deliver her first foal. Delivery appeared to be going well, until I saw the head protruding through the anus. To make a long story short, I pushed the foal back in and delivered the filly vaginally. (We ended up putting the filly down the next day due to extremely contracted tendons on my both back hooves). I have been flushing the mare's vaginal vault daily since the delivery and was making much progress in the healing. The first two weeks I put epsom salts in warm water and flushed the vaginal vault with an enema bag. Since then I have just used water. The tear went from it's original four inches down to two. However, now the mare has envaluded (sp?) very nicely which has caused the vaginal vault to become very tight. The tear is getting larger and there is more manure DrOpping down into the vault. Until we do the reconstructive surgery, my vet has told me to get her stool to soften up. We believe the new tearing is due to hard stools and her forcing to defecate. My vet believes that we will not have to compromise the anal sphincter to do the reconstruction but that they will have to basically open up the vulva and start stitching from the back.
So, do you have any suggestions on what I can do to get the healing to start again on its own and what kind of questions I should ask the surgeon (he will be from a famous vet school nearby).

Posted on Saturday, Apr 20, 2002 - 2:36 pm:

Hello B,
I think trying to soften the stools is a worthy goal, particularly following the surgery, but harder to achieve than you might think. The usual plan is to try and increase fecal water content but as you try and push more water in, say by soaking the feed or using bran mashes for instance, the horses drink less because they are not as thirsty.

The best sucess with softening stools has been with discontinuing grain and forage and switching to one of the complete feed pellets that are moistened to a firm mash and then had about a cup of mineral oil thoroughly mixed in per feeding. The problem is the mineral oil is not very palatable so you might start with a 1/2 cup and then up it if that is acceptable.

I am not sure of any questions in particular since there really is no option but to do the surgery. Explain the situation to the surgeon carefully and just follow their lead.
DrO
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