engleski

Difficult labours with fatal consequences in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) from the Adriatic sea

Difficult labour (dystocia) has an important role in human and veterinary obstetrics and often requires an assisted delivery to prevent complications, both in the mother and the newborn. Its main causes are abnormal fetal positions, fetal abnormalities, and disorders in the form and function of the reproductive tract of the mother. In animals in the wild difficult labours proceed unassisted and they can end fatal for the fetus, mother or both. As part of a long-term project to investigate marine mammal strandings, 139 bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) carcasses found in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea were examined from October 1990 to November 2009. In five cases we observed dystocia with fatal consequences. The age of the females ranged from 6 to 22 years. The causes of dystocia were abnormal fetal positions (dolphin No. 8 and 159) and a fetal congenital abnormality (dolphin No. 183). In two dolphins the cause of dystocia could not be observed but there were evidences of a difficult labour in form of a prolapsed uterus (dolphin No. 17) and prolapsed vagina and urinary bladder (dolphin No. 35). The bottlenose dolphin is the only resident marine mammal species in the Adriatic Sea, with an estimated number of around 200 adult individuals and around 20 cubs living in the Croatian area. It is estimated that between 15 and 20 bottlenose dolphin births occur there annually, so the estimated total number of births since 1990 is between 270 and 360. This means that dystocia with fatal consequences appears in between 1.4% to 1.9% of all births in the bottlenose dolphin from the Croatian part of the Adriatic.

bootlenose dolphin

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