Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Nov
15
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…No But I’ll Do It Anyway…”
Mom asks: “Is it necessary to do that?”
Certified Nurse Midwife: “No, but I’ll do it anyway.”
Mom: “I’d prefer if you didn’t.”
Certified Nurse Midwife: “That’s okay, I’ve already started.”
There are 20 comments to this post.
Claire Winstone had this to say,
Nov 15, 2009 @ 3:43 pm (Quote)
Now there’s what we call “informed consent” — NOT! Sad that moms have to learn to say things like “I do not consent to . . .” to “caregivers”!!
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What did she do?!
I have a friend who had an “internal exam” at 40 weeks at the Dr’s office and figured out afterward that they’d stripped her membranes.
They were hoping she’d let them induce her. She ended up going so quickly that her son was born in my car!
They were very mad.
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mommymichael had this to say,
Nov 15, 2009 @ 6:09 pm (Quote)
oops! my leg slipped! i didn’t MEAN to kick you in the face!!
what exactly what she doing?
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Aron Reply:
November 16th, 2009 at 5:38 am (Quote)
^ My thoughts exactly! Although, if what she was doing involved needles, that may not have been feasible.
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jenneology Reply:
November 21st, 2009 at 10:39 am (Quote)
I have fantasized about kicking her in the head since then…Instead, I gave up and then had PTSD afterward. That wasn’t the only thing contributing to it, but it was part of it.
The midwife was stitching a minor tear after the baby was born.
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Last pregnancy I believe the sub OB stripped my membranes. I had contractions for a day or so that were annoying and had bleeding…lost a bunch of my mucous plug. The next week my OB did a normal exam and I had no issues. She tried to assure me the other OB wouldn’t do that, but I am sure she gave me a rough exam on purpose.
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Knitted in the Womb had this to say,
Nov 20, 2009 @ 9:23 am (Quote)
Saddly, this happens FAR too often. My membranes were stripped without my consent, though I will give that the OB immediately stopped when hubby and I, in unison, told him I didn’t want it.
I’ve seen meds put in IV’s without consent or even AGAINST the explicit instructions of the mother (see my “Pit to Distress” post), I’ve seen women told that they couldn’t have Pitocin infusions held constant or turned off without consent of their Dr.
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Andy (UK midwife, male, too!) had this to say,
Nov 29, 2009 @ 12:42 pm (Quote)
If I did that, I would be done for assault. I would probably end up being struck off too. Why do caregivers seem to take on this mantle of power? Yes, we are the professionals, but the woman’s wishes are everything. If she says no, you stop, or at least give her a bloody good reason for carrying on. I make it clear to women when I VE them that, yes the information I need is important, but it is not as important as their comfort, and I will stop as soon as they ask. I also make it clear to any doctor I am working with that they should stop when the woman asks. One time I fell out with a senior doctor was when I said to a medical student that I would see if my lady was happy with him observing. ‘Don’t worry about that’, said the doctor. ‘We are medics, we don’t need to knock.’ We discussed it loudly in the corridor, and he now knocks before he comes into my labour room.
Andy
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Sorry to keep on, but the way I see maternity care is this:
As an ex-engineer, engineering works at three levels:
The engineer, who designs the system in the first place;
The technician who keeps it running smoothly;
The mechanic, who fixes it when it breaks.
Now, in my mind, whichever supreme being you believe in is the engineer. The midwife is the technician. The doctor is the mechanic, who we call when the system breaks.
Things went wrong when the doctors started thinking they were the engineers. When they relearn their place, things will start to improve.
Andy
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A common one I saw as a student was, during a VE:
‘Pass me the amnihook, Andy….There! I’ve just broken your waters. Things will speed up now!’
I have never done that, and would give one of my students hell for trying it. Rupturing membranes (ARM as we call it here) is a surgical procedure, not to be done lightly. What if you break the waters with a high head, and a big loop of cord comes down? The woman, baby and, less importantly the midwife, are all in the poo. What if there is meconium? Bang goes the natural birth. Admittedly the natural birth idea would be out the window as soon as the waters went and mec was seen, but she would have had that little big longer to mobilise before the continuous monitoring commenced. The thing is, you had better have a darn good reason for doing these things, because if you do an unnecessary procedure and things go wrong, the first question you’d be asked in court is ‘why did you do it?’ If you can’t give a good answer you are in trouble.
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heidi Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 5:06 pm (Quote)
andy, meconium is a bm in the amniotic fluids correct? if that is so then it doesn’t necessarily rule out a natural birth… at least 27 years ago it didnt, i guess it might nowadays… as embarassing as it is i had that in my fluids when i was born and my mom still had me 100% natural… though i dont know if the docs had much choice in the matter she came in 3 hours into a 4 hour labor and they had different parts of the ward for labor and delivery back then, so by the time they got her checked in and found this out i was already ready to come out…
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Andy Reply:
December 29th, 2009 at 5:02 pm (Quote)
Yes, meconium is when the baby opens its bowels. It is actually the generic term for what the baby passes for the first 3 or 4 days (the black tarry stuff). If it is in the liquor, then the baby has opened its bowels in the uterus. This can be innocuous, the baby just did it for some reason. You often see this in postdates babies. However, it can be a sign of compromise (when we are short of oxygen, as a reflex our bowels open). Since you can’t ask the baby how it is feeling, the presence of meconium is taken as a sign of distress. When i said a natural birth is out of the window, I mean a mobilising, intermittent monitoring, as few people in the room as possible, stay in the pool or at home birth. Mec. means you need to continuously monitor the baby, have a second midwife in the room, and a paediatrician to check the baby. It doesn’t rule out a vaginal birth. And if the CTG is working well, you can mobilise too. It just means it will be a bit more medicalised.
Andy
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Andy, not to change the subject..but on the subject of rupturing membranes.. At wat time is it ok 2 break the water? I ask this bc I had a friend that had her water broken @ 3 cm and her son was born w fluid on his lungs. Was this wrong on the hospitals part? Or is it un related? Wat r u thoughts?
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Andy Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:27 pm (Quote)
There isn’t a ‘wrong’ time. Membranes are ruptured as part of the induction process, so it may happen at 2cm, if appropriate. Routine amniotomy isn’t a good idea, but ARM for induction is done under controlled conditions. Babies have fluid on their lungs naturally when in the womb. As part of the birth process, some gets absorbed at the start of labour, and most of the rest is squeezed out when they are born. When they breathe, the baby coughs up any other mucus and swallows it. Sometimes there is an excess they don’t cough up, or maybe it’s not passed naturally during birth. When that happens, the baby needs a bit of help because the fluid remains in the lungs. Obviously, I wasn’t there at the time, but I don’t think breaking the waters was the cause. The baby just had fluid because it did. It is very difficult in this job when things go wrong, because we always want somebody to be at fault. When we can’t find someone to blame, we blame ourselves. The only comfort you can offer is that it’s nothing the woman did. It was just in their stars. It was their turn.
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That’s just assault right there. How infuriating!!!
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