Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jan
3
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“She is Not Having As Much Contraction As She’s Selling.”
“She’s not having as much contraction as she’s selling.” -OB announced to the room when the doctor did not believe mother was experiencing significant contractions as she was expressing.
There are 18 comments to this post.
I had an ER tech (the one who was supposed to wheel me up to L&D- I walked) act as if I couldn’t possibly be in “real” labor because my contractions were “only” lasting 30 seconds. I gave birth less than 30 min after getting to the delivery room!
I put a lot more trust in Mama than in the dumb monitor! Especially when you are used to seeing Pit Contractions !
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atyourcervix had this to say,
Jan 3, 2010 @ 8:48 am (Quote)
While I will not discount a woman’s contractions without a thorough nursing assessment, there are some women who will fake their contractions for attention. See my latest post.
PS – palpation of the uterine fundus + mom’s pain level = the best assessment of how strong those contractions are. If they palpate firm, and mom states they are strong – I don’t give a flying fig what the monitor says or doesn’t say!
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Heather P Reply:
January 3rd, 2010 at 2:51 pm (Quote)
I couldn’t stand anybody touching my abdomen when I was having a contraction. Not even my husband. If somebody had tried to palpate my fundus while I was having a contraction, they might have lost an arm in the process. Nobody gave it a try.
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Sheila R Reply:
January 3rd, 2010 at 4:00 pm (Quote)
As a nurse, and midwife, I agree with atyourcervix’s post – both parts of it. I’ve taken care of many women who are faking contractions because they are tired of being pregnant. But if you hand tells you the contraction is strong, and the woman says the same thing, I don’t care what the monitor says.
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Michelle Potter Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 1:14 pm (Quote)
That’s just weird. what good is it to fake a contraction because you are tired of being pregnant?? Fake contractions aren’t gonna dilate that cervix! I mean, I believe you — there’s enough people in the world who fake sicknesses that they named a whole syndrome after it. It’s just weird.
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Megan had this to say,
Jan 3, 2010 @ 9:01 am (Quote)
It’s sad that doctors trust those stupid monitors more than they trust the woman! I have a friend who went to the hospital in labor with her 2nd. She had been having prodromal labor for days. She finally thought it was time to go to the hospital and when she got there she was ‘only’ 3 cms. They tried to send her home bc the contractions weren’t showing up on the monitor…but she was clearly in lots of pain. They thought she was overreacting but as she was getting dressed to LEAVE the hospital, they decided to check her again. The baby was almost crowning and then everyone started freaking out trying to get everything ready for the birth. The baby was born about 15 minutes later with just the nurse in the room. CRAZY. All bc they put faith in the stupid monitors.
(and what’s even sadder about her birth is that she wanted an epidural and was fully expecting one. When she realized it was too late she started to freak out. The baby was born so fast that she tore front to back (baby was only a 7 lb’er) and they knocked her out and took her to the O.R. to stitch her all up. So now she has this horrible birth experience and thinks it’s bc she ‘went natural’. *sigh*. It’s stories like these that scare women away from natural birth 
I just wanted to scream at her…”but it doesn’t have to be like that!”. My sister was another one who had a very fast 2nd labor and by the time she got to the hospital, it was too late for an epidural. She was so upset and now tells women “make sure you get to the hospital in time if you want an epidural”. *headdesk*. People who don’t plan on going natural and then end up having to birth without drugs are always the ones who have birth horror stories. It’s so sad).
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Sheila R Reply:
January 3rd, 2010 at 4:02 pm (Quote)
But women also need to remember that epidurals are not perfect. They do not always work, and you don’t get complete (or any) pain relief. They also can cause complications that lead to an emergency c/section, with general anesthesia. That’s also birth trauma.
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This same doc commented ” there’s no way that contractions can last more than 45 seconds”
(the monitor was showing NASTY double peaked contractions that lasted 90 seconds to 2 minutes- and mom who had a very low tolerance for pain, was complaining that the contractions never seemed to end.)
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Kat Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 8:02 am (Quote)
Ohhh that is awful!
Was she having pitocin induction/augmentation? It sounds like the contractions I was having at 3cm with my first. The never let up, and they were horrific. It was all the pitocin, I’ve never had contractions that painful again in 5 subsequent births, even during transition.
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Aron Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 6:08 am (Quote)
what an @$$. Apparently this “doc” hadn’t so much as read “What to Be Terrified of When You’re Expecting.” Even that piece of tripe will tell you that regular contractions can be 90 to 120 seconds long as a woman approaches transition. They can be double-, even triple-peaked – ESPECIALLY if pitocin is involved. Maybe he only sees contractions that are so short because all his patients never make it out of early labor or the Braxton-Hicks stage before they are carted off to the OR.
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atyourcervix Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 6:54 am (Quote)
You also will have coupling and tripling of contractions with a posterior lie.
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Char Haas Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 2:40 pm (Quote)
Ok- I finally have time to give the “whole” story-
No, mom was not having any kind of augmentation, she’d been at the hospital for 20+ hours at this point, and hubby had just arrived. The Doc was the “on call” doctor for his practice- not mom’s regular OB. Frankly- mom was having very little cervical change with those nasty double peaked contractions, and doc was pushign an epidural- but this comment was made not just aside to the nursing staff, but in front of the whole room- husband, sister, nurses, and Doula- and you just don’t say that sort of thing out loud . It changed the whole atmosphere in the room- it went from being quiet and supportive to downright chilly and resentful- she was making “too much fuss” and should “just shut up”
This poor mom ended up with an epidural that did nothing to take away her pain, (the anesthesiologist didn’t push enough meds through, because “she wasn’t really in that much pain” according to OB), and until he went off shift and her own doc and another Anesthesiologist came on- and called the c- she was in more pain than she had been before the epidural. This was one of the worst birthing experiences I’ve been through as a doula- oh- and baby girl had flipped transverse- what that idiot on call doc had thought was a head was the SHOULDER…..
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I know it’s a bit late but when i had my daughter i wasn’t listened to at all. It was in my notes that every woman in my family laboured quickly, 2hrs established labour. My first sign of labour was regular contractions at 10mins apart, i called the hospital who told me to wait at home, within an hour they were 5mins, again got told to stay at home. As soon as i hung up the phone they were back to back so i went straight up anyway. When i got there i was told i would be hours as it was my first and i could talk through the contractions. I kept telling them i needed to push but they wouldn’t listen and refused to give me pain relief. 30mins later she finally checked me and promptly ran out the room to get the senior midwife who said i was fully dilated and ready to push, the original midwife then LIED and said when she checked me there was still some cervix. I was in established labour for just 1hr and 15mins. I have a very high pain tolerence which is why they didn’t believe that i was that progressed. Most seem to go by the book rather than listenong to what the women have to say. That is why this time i am having a home birth and my midwife knows that i could possibly go very quickly. Fingers crossed she listens to me!
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ARRRRRGH!!!!
In what other area of medicine do the doctors routinely discount the amount of pain a patient is in? For heaven’s sake…
BTW,according to the almighty monitor, I delivered my firstborn with no real contractions whatsoever. I guess he just floated out of my navel or something. The machine said so. :-b
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Mommymichael Reply:
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:33 am Mommymichael(Quote)
OT but: Pediatrics, and ER doctors, from my own experience… I was probably about 12, and having a lot of pain in my ear. I had grown up having ear aches, so my parents took me to the doctor. He looked in my ears, announced they were perfectly healthy and told my parents I was probably just trying to get out of school. Apparently, because I had a smile on my face (that’s got me into issues before with medical caregivers.)
My parents had to bring me back the next day because my right eardrum ruptured. Suck on that, MD.
Two summers ago, I went to the ER with my dad. I thought my son had possibly broken my nose because the whole area was aching pretty bad. Once again, I must have been too cheery. The ER doctor didn’t believe I was in any pain. My dad told her, “Listen, she’s had two homebirths. She has a high pain tolerance. If she says she’s hurting, she’s hurting.”
So they gave me an x-ray. Lo and behold.. not a broken nose, but all four sinuses were seriously infected and completely filled! There was no drainage going on whatsoever. Other than aching, I felt normal.
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