Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jun
16
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…You’ll Never Birth A Baby Over Six Pounds.”
You can *try* and VBAC, but you’ll never birth a baby over six pounds.” -OB
There are 25 comments to this post.
This was mine 
And I’m happy to say I proved her very wrong with my 8lb 4 oz VBAC in February! With a head in the 90%!
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Tracy Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 4:59 pm (Quote)
Yeah! You go girl! So glad you did not listen!
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 5:19 pm (Quote)
YAAAAAAY!
This is strange, but for some odd reason, I find it even more offensive when a female OB says something like that than when a male says it. Maybe I’m expecting more support and common sense from a person whose plumbing matches mine.
I find myself hoping that she was there while you gave birth, and that the look on her face was appropriately dramatic when you showed her to be utterly wrong.
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joan Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 7:05 pm (Quote)
Nah, I changed doctors! Went with a midwife group who were fantastic!!!
I have thought about emailing her or something, just to let her know that she should be careful about making sweeping judgements when it really affects someone’s life.
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Aron Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 6:00 am (Quote)
Oh, I hope you do email her. Send her a photo of your “impossible” babe and remind her never to tell a woman that her body’s just not capable. Maybe attach a copy of Gloria Lemay’s article “Pelvises I Have Known and Loved” along with it.
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Sheva Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 7:20 am (Quote)
Yes, please do send the letter or email! You *might* change her, even a teensy bit. Or you might just show her she’s not always right.
Congratulations on your VBAC!! That’s awesome!
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Michelle Potter Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 2:37 pm (Quote)
I agree with the others who said please do send her a photo and a letter! Remind her what she said, but use words and phrases that are more “Aren’t you happy that I did it?” and less “Ha! You were wrong!” Maybe she’ll hang the photo in her office and it will make a difference next time she’s about to tell a woman that she *can’t*.
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Michelle Potter Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 2:48 pm (Quote)
I think maybe we rationalize that the awful comments and practices we read about on this site are just a result of the fact that a male OB simply cannot really understand and sympathize with a pregnant or laboring woman, being incapable of such himself. When we hear these comments from a female OB, we can’t rationalize, so it seems all the worse.
I think we need to remember something that we say here all the time — all women are unique individuals. Just because two people are both women, doesn’t mean we can expect them to think or feel the same way. We can’t assume a female OB will automatically be a better, more caring, more evidence-based OB just because she has two X chromosomes. (Just like we can’t assume a male OB can’t learn to be empathetic just because of that Y chromosome.)
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Jill--Unnecesarean Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 5:28 pm (Quote)
Wait. You mean the doctor was wrong about the six pound “diagnosis?”
Just kidding. Congrats, Joan!
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Cmat Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 6:29 pm (Quote)
Yay! Glad you proved them wrong! Congratulations!
Sarah- What is sad about the same plumbing ordeal is that they probably figure that we trust them more because of that.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch had this to say,
Jun 16, 2010 @ 5:20 pm (Quote)
What? Was the original reason for surgery that the mother was two feet tall?
No?
Then fuhgeddaboudit, doc.
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Yes, I have a friend who has (I might botch this) chondroplasia (a form of dwarfism–she is about 4’5″). She was told from the beginning she was “too short” to have a vaginal delivery. As it turned out, she got severe pre-eclampsia and was quite ill, so she did have a c-section for that reason, but I can’t believe the “too short” comment. What the heck did that have to do with it? She liked her OB, though, and when he scrubbed in while she was prepped, he called to her “Told you that you’d have a c-section!” and she thought it was funny. She’s a lot nicer about that sort of thing than I would have been. ;0
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My doc told me this when I was 6 weeks prego with baby #1…apparently because I have a small pelvis AND my mom “had” to have all C’s.
At 42 weeks (after I hired a homebirth midwife) I labored for 44 hours and gave birth in my birthpool, at my home, to my sweet 10 pound son.
I took my son back to this OB to make sure he didn’t ever tell another mom she cannot birth a baby over 7 lbs. He blew me off. I became a doula and have now helped over 250 moms birth. Thanks for inspiring me, Doctor
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Sheva Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 7:24 am (Quote)
You are amazing for taking you baby back to the doc. Shame on him for blowing you off.
And you’re doubly amazing for taking this episode and making something positive of it, instead of only hurting, like I did. But I’m taking the first few baby steps towards using my story to change other women’s lives. I’ve attended three births so far. Thank you for being an inspiration to me!
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That sounds like an OB setting himself up to be fantastically incorrect. :-b
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