retained placenta, causes and likeliness to happen again?

i had my daughter 21 months ao and had a retained placenta. when the ob tried to pull on the cord nothing happened. i had the needle to try help thigns along and in the end the epidural was topped up again and the ob used his hand to remove the placenta and said the placenta was pretty much not working anymore.
i am now wondering what the cause of this could be, this was my first pregnancy and birth and so i had no existing scar tissue from a ceasarean. and how likely is it to happen with my next child? am i able to elect to have a caesarean instead if its liekly to happen again?

[lhowell]

I had the same thing with my son.  Usually after birth the uterus will continue to contract to release the placenta.  In our case, the doctors had to remove them by hand (I had no pain meds and this hurt more than the actual delivery of the baby).  My doctor said it wasn't really a big deal at all...

[Jo A]

NOT FOR HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't you love when men tell you **** like that????????

[lnstorm]

I have 4 children and with each delivery I had a harder time delivering my placenta.  Then finally with the 4th child, my OB resorted to manually delivering it.  I received Versed (so I do not remember a thing, but my husband sure remembers).  I delivered each child naturally and with no meds and minimal moaning, and my husband said the nurses down the hall could hear me.  He was sooooooooo mad that they gave me nothing for pain control.  I'm ok with it since I remember NOTHING.  But my husband had a hard time explaining what happened to me.  I found it funny that there was a progression of the retained placenta.  I explained this to my OBs and she was not concerned that it was progressing.  

[yzarc]

A related discussion, what causes retained placenta? was started.