Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jan
15
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…You Are Going To Tear.”
Midwife during pushing stage: “I am going to cut an episiotomy.”
Mother: “Don’t cut.”
Midwife: “I need to Honey, because you are going to tear.”
There are 16 comments to this post.
I am going to give this midwife the benefit of the doubt and assume she was actively looking at the mothers perineum about to tear and decided an episiotomy might be better.
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Kat Reply:
January 15th, 2010 at 10:27 am (Quote)
Better… than what?
IF the tear did happen, how severe would it be? Did her crystal ball reveal that info?
Sometimes tearing happens and it’s a “skid mark” that is basically the equivalent of a paper cut, or a slight crack like dry skin might get in the winter.
Sometimes a tear is only superficial, and doesn’t even require stitching.
A natural tear has been proven to heal better than a straight cut.
A cut always cuts through muscle and skin (second degree). A cut always increases the risk the mom will tear further than she would if cutting had not been done. A cut always has to be stitched back, and has been proven to not heal as easily as a tear.
Benefit of the doubt or not,according to evidence-based care this medwife was not doing the mother any favors by cutting her.
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Molly Reply:
January 15th, 2010 at 2:41 pm (Quote)
Well, instead of assuming she was inexperienced or poorly trained, perhaps she was SO experienced that she recognized the situation as one that would benefit from the episiotomy. Episiotomies aren’t the best route in the vast majority of cases, but how do we know this wasn’t the tiny minority that did warrant doing one? If the midwife knew the mother did not want an episiotomy, but in the immediacy of the labour she recommended doing one, maybe she had a good reason. You never know what will happen in a birth.
My homebirth midwife didn’t do an episiotomy, but she did need to cut my hymenal ring and after she did that my sons giant head slid right through. I deferred to her expertise because she was experienced and I trusted her. I had never ever heard of needing to cut the hymenal ring, apparently I was basically still a virgin despite 10 years of sexual activity. But my midwife knew what she was talking about.
Its not always appropriate to blindly trust the person attending your birth, but sometimes they do indeed know what they are doing.
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4daughters Reply:
January 25th, 2010 at 12:56 pm (Quote)
I’m the mom quoted in the post and I can tell you that the cut was ABSOLUTELY NOT necessary. How do I know? I tore at my next two birth but only required a few stiches. And where did I tear? Along the episiotomy scar.
And, by the way, it took me weeks to recover from that epsiotomy. I limped for weeks and had to sleep with ice packs between my legs because I was in so much pain.
I am, in a way, thankful for that midwife. She led me to research my opinions and discover natural, empowered birth.
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My OB pulled this one on me, and as I was pushing almost eight pounds of child out of my body at the time, I didn’t really have the strength or concentrate. She wasn’t even going to tell me. I ASKED if she was about to cut me (because she knew I preferred to tear) and she replied “Yes, but just a little bit, because the head is here and you’re about to tear.”
Oddly enough, besides her preference for epis, she was my preferred OB in the practice. That did not make me happy, though.
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Deborah Bach had this to say,
Feb 21, 2010 @ 1:33 am (Quote)
There’s a huge difference between cutting hymenal ring tissue and cutting perineum. Imagine you blow a bubble with bubble gum. Someone takes a scissor and cuts the bubble or they cut “just 2 mm” of you lip. One doesn’t hurt and doesn’t need to heal the other hurts like hell and takes a long time to heal painfully and you can’t talk or eat for ten days and need to be on IV. Most women defer to their doctors about a Cesarean cut and that’s why the C rate in the U.S. is about 30%, in Brazil about 90%. My guess is that poor Arab women have an extremely low C rate, whereas the rate (in hospitals) should be at least 5%, but not over 15%. The problem is that women defer way too much instead of using our lips and our voices. Some Arab women only use their eyes and wombs and you know what the state of their external genitals is. Women of the world, please use your voices to improve your births and the world!
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Stacie Hogan had this to say,
Feb 7, 2011 @ 10:33 pm (Quote)
this is exactly why i told my husband that i absolutely dont want an epis so that no matter what state of mind i am in when i am delivering, i have an advocate on my side who knows what i want. I have already had two 8lb+ babies with just a skid mark and im expecting this one to clear that at least.
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Wow, I didn’t know being a midwife meant you could predict the future!
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