Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Mar
21
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“You Will Kill Your Babies With Your Stubbornness.”
“You will kill your babies with your stubbornness.” -OB to mother carrying twins who did not want to schedule a cesarean at 38 weeks, when all late term tests indicated healthy babies tolerating the end of pregnancy well.
There are 35 comments to this post.
“Not if you kill them first with your lack of evidence based care!”
A good friend at mine had perfectly healthy twins on their due date. When she was interviewing back-up OBs, none of them would “let” her go past 38 weeks, and the only one who would “let” her deliver vaginally had a bunch of conditions attached. And these were the ones recommended to her as being natural birth friendly.
Needless to say, she decided against having a back-up OB and had a fabulous homebirth.
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Hi,
Just wanted to say 38 weeks is not late term.
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Something like that should never be said to any pregnant woman and that doctor should be reprimanded. I’m curious to know how it ended. Either my husband or I would probably be close to ending up in jail if something like this was said to us! haha
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The Deranged Housewife had this to say,
Mar 21, 2010 @ 8:15 am (Quote)
Hmm… I don’t know … as a mother of three, I’d say that some days, it’s the other way around!
All kidding aside, I hope this doctor was reprimanded. This is disgusting behavior and if you she couldn’t prove there was anything wrong with those babies, then let them be, for God’s sake. I’ve wondered lately if multiples only come early because doctors want them to, not because they ‘just do.’
I also wonder why people are often so aghast when you mention a vaginal birth with twins…I’m like, “It’s not like they come out at the same time, stupid!” LOL
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Sheva Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 8:28 am (Quote)
I actually watched a documentary from the National Geographic (I think) on multiples. One of the sentences that blew me away was when the narrator said that multiples (triplets or quads or more) are born early because of the danger of carrying them to term,( the uterus is a dangerous place, ladies), so the doctors opt to do a cesarean at like 28 weeks!! And these are considered elective cesareans. Well, when you put it that way, and don’t give her any other REAL information, what else would a mother choose??
And people wonder why these babies struggle so much!
Sure, we have the technology to save preemies if they come on their own, but why play games?!
And don’t you think that if the mother carries them longer, it means HER BODY CAN HANDLE IT!!
When I went into preterm labor, I had been very sick during that pregnancy, and my midwife said she wondered if it was my body’s way of preserving itself.
Our bodies are very clever, doc. They’ll let us know if they need your help.
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Had a friend years ago who carried her twins to 41 weeks — amazingly enough, they were very healthy and didn’t die. Go figure! Why can’t a woman’s body be trusted???
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Judith Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 9:06 am (Quote)
read a book yrs ago written by a Swiss midwife, her memoir, with many cases described. more than once when she arrived at an isolated farm house, she was met with the woman holding her twins in her arms!
every day counts in development and we know that it is superior if you labor as the babies can give the signal for labor instead of being surprised by abdominal birth and not ready to breathe.
I followed a mom who was expecting twins and would do home visits to make sure all was well. It was some yrs ago, and I remember her giving birth a few days after her due date and all was well.
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THey have hissies because OMG one of them is likely to be OMGBreech and DIE DIE DIE because the mommy is so SELFISH as to want to LABOR instead of just letting the OBs get on with the quickydicky cutting. Also, didn’t you know that carrying two babies is HEAVY and DANGEROUS and you just can’t DO that SAFELY? (for OB determined definitions of safety of course)
/sarcasm
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I seem to have heard some version of this comment related to just about everything a mother could possibly disagree with related to birth. From something as simple as not wanting immediate cord clamping to forced unwanted surgery.
It usually boils down to this. “I don’t want to bother explaining my reasons for doing something that you don’t want. So I’ll just call you a bad mother for disagreeing with me and say that you’re going to kill your baby. Then I can guilt you into doing what I say. If that doesn’t work I can always call the judge that I have on speed-dial and get a court order at 2:00am to cut your babies out”
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Jane Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 11:15 am (Quote)
Which means moms need to be well-educated, and when they’re confronted wiht something they don’t know about, we need to keep our cool under pressure and say, “That sounds scary. Can you show me some studies about that?”
If this doctor had to point to the evidence that these twins were in trouble, s/he couldn’t have done it. And they say pregnant moms make irrational decisions. 
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Has anybody here read “Pushed?” Jennifer Block met an OB who refers to this tactic as “playing the Dead Baby card.” When it comes to controlling and coercing women, fear is an oft-used weapon in the arsenal.
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Heather P Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 8:27 pm (Quote)
Yep, I’ve heard the “dead baby card” many times as a doula. Its insulting to the parents’ intellegence to assume that they don’t have their baby’s best interest in mind the whole time.
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Jane Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 4:24 am (Quote)
THe dead-baby card counts on the parents to have their baby’s best interest in mind. If the parents didn’t care if they had a dead baby, they’d make decisions for maximum convenience and least resistance against hospital policy.
Since they DO care, doctors and nurses say “Do this or your baby will DIE” (I even had a pediatric nurse do that to me once) because they find it works to manipulate the parents.
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I had a set of twins born in my dining room this Friday! They were 38 weeks, perfectly healthy, born seven hours apart and both over 6#. Birth works people! Its interference that gets us in trouble. You couldn’t pay me enough to birth in a hospital after all I have seen.
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Heather P Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 8:30 pm (Quote)
Congratulations Misty! That’s awesome! Seven hours apart! You’d never see that in a hospital. They’re always in such a rush.
When I interviewed homebirth midwives one of my requirements was that they attended twin and breech births. I had a vertex singleton, but always best to be prepared.
Congrats again!
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Sheva Reply:
March 21st, 2010 at 9:13 pm (Quote)
Congratulations!! I’m amazed at the 7 hour difference! I never knew it could happen, probably because they never ‘let’ it happen, but I’m so glad I know now.
Twins are hereditary in my family, and I want to know everything I can about them, so thank you for sharing!
(Why is it always “they let me” or “they didn’t let me”? Why do we need their permission?? Just asking.)
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Kat Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 6:59 am (Quote)
I once had a VERY telling conversation with a woman who was relating a relative’s twin birth story, and the reaction of a mutual relative.
Apparently the twins were born in the UK, and were not born within 2 seconds of each other, but more like 30 mins.-1 hr. apart. Both healthy, mom and babies did great!
When another relative (an OB/GYN) heard about the birth and the difference in the twins’ birth times, apparently the reaction was shock and horror. The comment?
“I would have cut her open SO FAST…”
I shuddered inwardly, and thought to myself “Well it’s a good thing she birthed in the UK as far as possible away from insanity like that!”
I restrained myself from insulting the storyteller’s relatives in her presence, but it further reinforced my reluctance to be attended by a surgeon for birth, if I wasn’t in need of surgery.
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Sheva Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 7:24 am (Quote)
I would have loved to hear the OB make the comment, so I could ask, “But why??”.
Really, why DO docs want to cut so fast after the first one comes? It almost sounds like they feel cheated out of an automatic section-for-twins!
And why are the OBs that were reading this not answering these questions, after they asked for it to be a dialogue instead of a doc-bashing festival?
To be fair to the OBs-who-care, here’s a good-OB-twin story: My cousin had twins, and the second one was breech, (vertex, I think), so to save her a section he actually reached in and turned it
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My mom had twins at 40 weeks in 1983. She labored at home (her previous births had been home births), showed up to the hospital fully dilated, but ended up having a necessary C-section because they were both breech (& the first twin was presenting footling breech). They both “survived late pregnancy”, were about 7 pounds each, and were fully ready for life outside the womb. I’m sure that the experience of labor/hormones were beneficial even though a vaginal birth didn’t happen. (my mom breastfed both of them)
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Lucia Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 7:58 pm (Quote)
Wow, boy am I lucky to have not killed mine with my stubbornness! I went 39 1/2 weeks and wouldn’t do the c-section until I absolutely HAD to. I exclusively BF too 
. Mine were Breech/Vertex and we didn’t go longer because I developed pre-e. Full term is full term. Yes twins tend to mature faster but every baby deserves 40 weeks if that’s what they need!
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Knitted in the Womb had this to say,
Mar 22, 2010 @ 12:13 pm (Quote)
In my area the longest the Dr’s will “let” a woman go with twins is 37 weeks. I had one client with twins who fought tooth & nail to go to 37 weeks 3 days. She was seeing a midwife, and was threatened with being risked out to the back up OB. 
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Sarah Ericson had this to say,
Jun 7, 2010 @ 10:47 am (Quote)
Well then I am surely the worst Mother in the world for not only having 40 week 5 day old twins, but also running so fast from the hospital after hearing what my labor would be like and not looking back! After I ran out of the hospital I made a beeline for home and had a wonderful breech/footling breech birth which truly saved my daughters life. She was born with a ping pong dent in her skull right over one of the veins that brings O2 and blood in to the brain. We did transport to the hospital after the birth. The neurosurgeon stated that if she had been born any other way even c-birth that she would either be brain damaged or dead since there was no way to know about the dent prior to her birth. One of the best books I found on birthing twins and multiples is called Having Twins and More by Elizabeth Noble.
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Mrs Murphy had this to say,
Sep 21, 2010 @ 11:00 am (Quote)
Just found this thread. My stubbornness worked just fine for my two sets of twins, thank you very much. First set was 40 weeks, second set 37 weeks (or so the little chart thingy said). I was adamant about not having a c-section and am glad I stood up for what I believed in. My babies ranged in weight from 6 pounds 7 ounces to 7 pounds even — the 7-pounder being one of the 37 week babies. I also went without an epidural the second time and found that the babies were much more alert than the first two. First labor was nearly 20 hours; second was about 14. I consider myself twice blessed.
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Add Your Comment.
I am one of the most stubborn people in the world (ask my husband), and I have four beautiful, healthy children.
Another myth bites the dust!
Seriously, that is the most HORRIBLE thing to say to a mother. I am always terrified that I will do something to harm my unborn babies and am constantly double guessing myself. To put words to that terror and actually blame the mother in advance for anything that will go wrong is just cruel. (That’s how I hear it, anyway.)
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