Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jun
7
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…You’re Definitely Going To Need A Cesarean Section.”
“You’re not even dilated. His head’s not even engaged. You’re definitely going to need a cesarean section.” -OB to mother at 38 week prenatal appointment.
There are 31 comments to this post.
Nichol (@faedemere) had this to say,
Jun 7, 2010 @ 4:24 pm (Quote)
Holy cow this one is bad. 38 weeks baby doesn’t have any business being engaged nor does mom need to be dilating! Bah!~
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What a jerk!
I didn’t dilate with my first two until right before, and none of mine really engaged until I started labor. And so horrible off handed with his ignorance. Argh!
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mommymichael Reply:
June 8th, 2010 at 8:19 am (Quote)
my baby was still -2 station just 15 minutes before she was born. she slid out just fine.
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LeedleFishy had this to say,
Jun 7, 2010 @ 5:45 pm (Quote)
…not to mention the possibility of the EDD being *wrong*, let alone the chance that it’s off by a full week or two! I think this is really important… especially as a woman who tends to ovulate around cycle day 24. : P
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I really don’t think my daughter dropped until I was in labor, and she was my first- people kept asking me if she had dropped, and I would say I didn’t feel any different so I didn’t think so. that’s what made me think that she would be late, but then she was born almost right on my due date.
Can this OB tell the future?! Because that’s a useful talent..
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attached2mykids had this to say,
Jun 7, 2010 @ 6:06 pm (Quote)
I failed to mention that this was 19 months after a c-section. Also, there’s a question as to what my exact EDD was. I believe this was at 37 weeks and my c-section (yes, I gave in to the pressure and sadly had a second c-section) was at 38 weeks. I still want to kick myself for being bullied (into the first and second c-section). However, I am using that frustration to educate myself and educate other mothers as a doula.
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Cmat Reply:
June 7th, 2010 at 6:29 pm (Quote)
I bet you will be (or are) an awesome doula though!
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Nicole Reply:
June 7th, 2010 at 10:25 pm (Quote)
I am so sorry you were bullied. Many doctors seem to have a talent for it (the one caring for me during my VBAC attempt sure was) Please try not to kick yourself over the choices you were pressured into making. It is so hard to do what you feel is right when the “experts” and other people around you are telling you otherwise.
Good for you for using the energy in a positive way and becoming a doula (one of the things I did in my healing journey after my CBAC as well) Cesarean moms who choose to learn from their experience and help others avoid a similar one can make great doulas 
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I’m so sorry you had this experience. It’s inexcusable.
So this goes to show one more reason to just avoid the vaginal exams in the first place – so they can’t be used against you to bully you into a “convenient” intervention.
For the record, none of my babies engaged before labor, and my third engaged after about 15 hours of labor, about 10 minutes before he was born. I don’t know about dilation because I didn’t have vaginal exams during pregnancy. As a matter of fact, I didn’t have any during my first labor, either.
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Crystal Reply:
June 7th, 2010 at 9:54 pm (Quote)
That was my 3rd. She was sunny side & a bit tilted. She didn’t engage until 3 days of moderate early labour. She was born 2 hours after she engaged & I dilated from 2-10 in about 45 minutes. So pah! Silly OB!
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Susan Reply:
June 8th, 2010 at 2:56 am (Quote)
I agree about the vaginal exams. I had two during labour with my son, and I didn’t start dilating at all until I hit active labour. Once I started dilating, though, I went from 3-10cm in a little over an hour. As for the head engaging, my mother tells me I hadn’t dropped at all when she went into spontaneous labour at 38 weeks.
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TJ Reply:
June 8th, 2010 at 3:52 am (Quote)
I lucked out, I think. I have a doctor who is very into vaginal exams the last few weeks, but after we discussed how I wasn’t interested in induction, there was never any pressure to do anything with the results of the exams.
I did end up taking an induction after I started showing signs of pre-eclampsia, but it wasn’t until the day after my due date and my body was preparing to go into labor on its own anyway, so it was a very easy induction, I think.
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The ob/gyn office that I was going to had a policy of starting vaginal exams at 36 weeks, but I declined every time. My favorite doctor there said that he had never been in the habit of doing them routinely before he started practicing with them, and he always brought it up at the office meetings “hey, why do we do routine vaginal exams?” and no one wanted to answer him. So he was perfectly happy that I wasn’t getting them! It was really great being surprised when labor started, not just waiting for it to come, or disappointed that it hadn’t started yet.
Too bad I gave birth at 4:56 in the morning- just a few hours later and that doctor would have been on call 
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Jane Reply:
June 8th, 2010 at 5:10 am (Quote)
I’ve told this story before on this site, but when my brother and SIL refused standard vaginal exams at 37 weeks onward (after the doctor stripped her membranes without informing her) they did get the doctors to admit that routine vaginal exams in the final month give no useful information whatsoever.
She said, “Fine. So I decline consent.”
It’s just a case of the doctor doing it because the doctor has always done it that way. :-b They like having data points to put on their charts.
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sara Reply:
June 8th, 2010 at 5:18 am (Quote)
Honestly I feel like it’s the only thing they know to do in the last few weeks- I mean, you have to go every stinking week for….what? If you’re having a normal pregnancy there’s really no reason to go that often, so they have to have SOMETHING to tell you, right? Even if it means nothing.
That’s my theory.
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Jane Reply:
June 8th, 2010 at 5:27 am (Quote)
I think they want to check BP, swelling and protein in the urine in the last four weeks. But once you’re in the office, like you said, they feel like they need to do something. And it seems so professional because most women don’t get internal exams from random strangers at the grocery store. 
But in effect it sends a message to the woman that her body isn’t working right because she’s not dilating/effacing/glowing/whatever and puts her more in the mindset to accept medical interventions.
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I am surprised my OB didn’t say this to me. I remember feeling like a such bad patient at my 37th and 38th week VEs. At the 38th, my OB seemed so disappointed because I wasn’t showing any changes. Even though I knew better, I left feeling like a such a bad patient. He expressed concerned that the baby was still high up. The next evening my water broke and labor started. When I arrived at the hospital the next morning I was 4cm and the baby was +1. Unfortunately, labor stalled once at the hospital and I had 5 VEs in the first hour!!! I did end up with a c/s.
When I spoke with the OB about it at my postpartum, he said that at that 38th week prenatal he determined that I had only a 50/50 chance of giving birth vaginally.
I just wish he had told me that then so I would have known to fire him immediately.
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JulietsButterfly had this to say,
Jun 9, 2010 @ 6:19 am (Quote)
I was always curious and with my first didn’t know any better. I do know that I started dilating by 36 weeks, but I was also iffy on the EDD they gave me. Given that my DD came 3/27 instead of the EDD 4/13 (with no induction or c/s), the date was wrong. Maybe I’m the reason they want to do it like that?
With my DS I was just curious. Just like with my DD I had started to dilate, so I knew things were close. Then again, I could tell without my dr’s help that he was pretty engaged. I did like my dr’s words of “He can’t go any further down until you’re in full blown labor.”
It’s still bull to tell a mom at 38 weeks with no “progress” that she’ll need a c/s. I have plenty of friends who were “high and closed” until the day or week they went into labor.
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Aron Reply:
June 9th, 2010 at 11:17 am (Quote)
Women can, and do, walk around several centimeters dilated for several weeks with their babies firmly engaged in the pelvic outlet. Ask my best friend who has experienced the feeling of sitting on her baby’s head with all three of her full-term pregnancies! Even if you show up dilated to a 36-week exam, it still doesn’t mean diddly about when you’ll go into labor.
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Linda Germany had this to say,
Jul 19, 2010 @ 12:29 pm (Quote)
This almost the same exact thing that happened to me! I still to this day believe that my son was atleast a cuople of weeks early. The office visit where he told me to pic the day I wanted my son born was also the visti he tried to strip my membranes. It hurt like he**! And it made me bleed almost like i was menstrating. STUPID MAN!!
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SistaC Reply:
June 8th, 2010 at 12:25 am SistaC(Quote)
Ain’t that the truth!
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