Apr 9

“All Bleeding Stops Eventually.”

“All bleeding stops eventually.” – OB to mom suffering severe secondary hemorrhage who had asked if the bleeding was ever going to stop.

62 people dislike these words.

There are 18 comments to this post.

Heather P had this to say, Apr 9, 2010 @ 4:06 pm (Quote)

Eeek! As someone who has experienced a severe hemorhage I can say that this would have freaked me out at the time.

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laura had this to say, Apr 9, 2010 @ 4:28 pm (Quote)

… sometimes with death. Which is what would have immediately come to MY mind.

I think some OBs just have their humanity amputated when they graduate from med school. What this woman needed was a PERSON to RESPOND to her fear with compassion. UGH.

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Jane Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 4:46 pm Jane(Quote)

I think that *was* what the OB meant– that either it clots or she dies, but either way, the bleeding will stop.

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Serene Reply:
November 1st, 2010 at 7:36 am Serene(Quote)

Its true though. All bleeding does stop, just a really REALLY stupid thing to say!

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Heather had this to say, Apr 9, 2010 @ 4:43 pm (Quote)

Very true. Eventually, you die. That’ll stop it right up.

Heartless much?

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Amy had this to say, Apr 9, 2010 @ 5:05 pm (Quote)

When I took an EMT class I was told ‘All bleeding eventually stops. All patients eventually die. If you drop the baby, pick it up.’ While it is one thing to train your medical staff to not panic if things go wrong, I would never repeat such callous concepts in front of a patient.

This is not the attitude you should show to any patient, but especially one dealing with something like this.

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cmat had this to say, Apr 9, 2010 @ 5:05 pm (Quote)

Scares.
The.
Crap.
Outta.
Me.

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Umm Abdullah had this to say, Apr 9, 2010 @ 6:41 pm (Quote)

Dear OB,

Please think before you open your mouth.

Sincerely,
Women who PAY you for your service

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Kelly had this to say, Apr 9, 2010 @ 8:54 pm (Quote)

Yeah, it does stop eventually….once you’ve bled out and are dead.

WTF?!

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whiskers had this to say, Apr 10, 2010 @ 2:55 pm (Quote)

“Yeah, I’d like it to stop before I die. What can we do about that?”

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Sheva had this to say, Apr 10, 2010 @ 6:43 pm (Quote)

Do they practice good ‘gotcha’ lines?
Also, what exactly is secondary hemorrhage?

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Jane Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 4:10 am Jane(Quote)

I figured it’s what you call it when the placenta delivers fine and the bleeding is normal, and then about four hours later the mom starts bleeding heavily. THat happened to me. It was pretty scary.

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Sheva Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 5:07 am Sheva(Quote)

Then shouldn’t they be scrambling to find the source of the bleeding or the cause? And also trying to stop it?
What are the usual causes?
I hope the OP comes back and lets us know how things went after this ‘gem’ was uttered.

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Jane Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 6:00 am Jane(Quote)

This happened to me after my homebirth, so I did a lot of uterine massage and drank a lot of RRL tea. But I was badly anemic for a long time afterward, and I don’t doubt that in the hospital I’d have been transfused. They’d probably have given me pitocin if I could have gotten hold of a nurse at the point where I started soaking through a pad every half hour…but there’s no guarantee I could have gotten the nurse to come and take me seriously. “Oh, everyone bleeds a lot.” :-b

(Before everyone jumps all over me, I’d had four deliveries at that hospital and it was practically impossible to get a nurse to come into the room, and if you reported something troubling or dangerous, they’d poo-pooh it, up to and including when they refused to acknowledge a problem that eventually landed my son in the NICU for three days but could have been prevented had they acted immediately.)

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Sheva Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 6:33 am Sheva(Quote)

I’m with you on this one!
The only time they came into my room was when I was sleeping, to wake me up to “see how we’re doing here” and check my stitches.

When I needed help, I’d have to ring more than once because they were suddenly too busy, probably waking someone else up to check her stitches.

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Jane Reply:
April 11th, 2010 at 7:15 am Jane(Quote)

The first time I wanted to get out of bed, we rang for the nurse and 45 minutes later I got out of bed unassisted because she never came. She was furious when she eventually showed up because I’d bled all over the floor. And she said, “You’re not my only patient, you know! I have a lot to do and you just need to deal with it!”

An hour later, when she came in and I was faint because I was hungry and the kitchen had never delivered breakfast, that same nurse said, “Well you just have to advocate for yourself! You need to ask for what you need!”

I’m not sure whether she actually realized she was blaming me for both expecting someone to take care of me in the hospital and expecting that no one would take care of me in the hospital. And people wondered why I had PPD for a year after that birth. :-b

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Serene Reply:
November 1st, 2010 at 7:43 am Serene(Quote)

That was my nurse when I had my thyroid out! I had the runs because of my IBS and fasting for 20 hours, and you are supposed to be confined to bed until 16 hours after the Operation. I knew *my* nurse was dealing with an emergency, so I rang the bell, and nothing. 15 minutes later, I couldnt hold it no more and bolted to the loo. This nosy cow in the bed actoss from me rang the emergency buzzer to get a nurse pronto and told on me. The nurse ended up yelling at me through the toilet door then when I opened it once I was done, she just looked at me and said (through the… odour) “I thought you were dying”! Ha! Its unbelievable sometimes what it takes to just get a bedpan!

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