It poses significant risk to the mother as well. This is because obstetrics is a specialty in which a prospective mother can be normal one moment and bleeding to death the next. And an unborn baby can be normal one moment and suffering devastating fetal distress the next. Even in the most modern private practices and best-equipped hospitals there are still isolated disastrous outcomes that no one could have averted. But there are also many more miracle stories that just wouldn't have been so if a patient didn't have a whole hospital wrapped around her.
Hemorrhage remains a major life-threatening complication in pregnancy.
Unfortunately, it is usually sudden. Since the baby is dependent on the surface area of the placenta adhering to the mother so as to exchange oxygen and nutrients, fetal death can quickly ensue. Emergency cesarean section is life saving for the baby, and sometimes for the mother as well. Emergency release blood can keep a mother from undergoing cardiovascular collapse and shock. Anesthesia is there to make the whole thing painless as well as balance the tricky fluid exchanges during the melodrama.