After a woman gives birth to her baby, labor is not over. She also has to birth the placenta, and this can be quite risky.
The placenta attaches to the uterus through a series of blood vessels, which reach from the mom into the placenta. After childbirth, the placenta tears off the uterus, leaving these vessels open and exposed.
“That’s just part of the bleeding,” says Dr. Jeffrey Smith, an OB-GYN at the nonprofit Jhpiego in Baltimore. “The uterus has large, wide-open vessels all around, which have been pouring blood out for nine months. Now all the sudden, these vessels need to close up.”
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