“Yes, that’s right, the nice machine knows much more about your labor, and the intensity of your contractions than you do. Now just lie back and be a good little patient…”

I know some of these sound hard to believe at first, but I have personally spoken to too many women who were told some variation of this not to believe it.

I think I would have ripped off the monitors at that point and requested a new nurse.

and this is just a little kick in your crotch, nurse.

My (then) HUSBAND said this to me while I was in labor. And he wonders why I divorced him….

The TOCO only measures that there is a CHANGE in pressure, not the actual strength of the contraction… only way to get an accurate measure of contraction strength is an internal IUPC, of which I am sure that many of you are opposed to…. so that L&D nurse needs a little education on how a Tocometer actually works.