Veterinary Obstetrics And Boarding: How These Two Things Are Connected
Considering that most animals will breed when left to themselves in breeding pairs or herds, it may surprise you to know that there is actually a field of veterinary medicine dedicated to obstetrics. Veterinary obstetricians are specialists practicing in larger animal hospitals around the world. The hospitals provide all of the necessary space for breeding, insemination, boarding of pregnant animals that need to be carefully monitored, and more. If you have a female animal you want to breed, and you know that you may not be around for half of the pregnancy, you might want to consider boarding your animal at an animal hospital that has a veterinary obstetrician. Here is how these two seemingly disconnected topics are actually really connected.
Veterinarian OBGYNs
In the last thirty years, veterinary science has really moved forward. Since humans began using ultrasound machines to detect pregnancy, birth defects, and the health of fetuses, vets figured out a way to use the technology on animals. In doing so, they created an entire new field of veterinary medicine—obstetrics and gynecology.
While vets already know a ton about animal reproductive organs and diseases of these organs in animals, OBGYNs for animals helped create new ways to save the lives of calves, foals, and other baby animals. Since cows in labor are constantly inches from death (given their anatomy and the direct line of a major blood vessel from uterus to heart), advancements in labor and delivery for these animals provided life-saving interceding measures. Now, some of the very best animal hospitals have a veterinary OBGYN on staff.
Artificial Insemination or Monitored and Controlled Breeding
In this situation, you would take your pet to a vet, and the vet would be an OBGYN. The OBGYN vet would place your large female animal in a breeding stall. Large animals would receive daily injections to help ready the mother animal's ovaries and uterus for conception. Then, the OBGYN vet would artificially inseminate the mother, or the stud or bull or whatever would be brought in. In this way, the natural mating ritual would be carefully controlled so that the male animal would not become vicious and hurt the female during mating. The male would be removed to separate quarters.
Both animals would remain in the animal hospital until a pregnancy has been confirmed. (Smaller animals would be held by a vet tech for the purpose of artificial insemination. The smaller animals would remain for just a couple of days and then go home.)
Diagnosing Dangerous Pregnancy Disorders and Delivery Issues
Mother animals, just like human mothers, often have dangerous pregnancy disorders and delivery issues. Breech babies are quite frequent in both large and small animals. Hypertension in mother animals, as well as diabetes, is also common. Mother animals can have fainting spells due to where their babies are positioned in utero. Difficult and delayed deliveries can equal death for both mother and baby animal if the babies are not pulled out.
Since it is very unsafe to move these animals to a vet clinic, a veterinary OBGYN will often recommend or prescribe that the mother animals stay in pens or stalls for the duration of the mother animals' pregnancies. Here, the vet OBGYN can carefully and closely monitor the mother animals' well-being. It is akin to putting a human mother on strict bed rest. When the mother animals are ready to deliver, they are in the exact spot for care, and do not have to suffer a dangerous move to the hospital if something goes completely sideways (like a sideways breech, which actually happens).
Boarding Pregnant Animals for Safety in Your Absence
In addition to all of the above reasons for boarding pregnant or breeding animals, you would also board your pregnant animals while you are away. It is neither a good nor safe idea to leave pregnant animals unattended or allow them to wander when you are away. Their health is at stake, and being in an animal hospital with an OBGYN vet is the best place for them until you return.
Contact a veterinarian for more information.