Maybe it was the first time she got caught giving medication without doctor’s orders.

Regarding the issue of running roughshod over the wishes and consent of the patients, it would be harder to prove, I imagine – the nurse’s word versus the patient’s, especially if documentation conveniently went missing, although if enough complaints piled up, critical mass would surely account for something…

I disagree strongly.

The PPH’s you’ve seen, have any of them been at home without pitocin, laboring at a hospital with people interupting the process repeatedly, were women allowed to eat and drink freely? Maternal exhaustion can lead to more severe or increase risk of PPH, and having her labor interuppted repeatedly can increase her risk for exhaustion and acidosis which can lead the uterus to lose it’s tonity.

The tears you mention, were most of them with an epidural and/or in an unfavorable position for birthing? Tear risk also increases with coached pushing.

Whining that they had a c-section? WHINING? Referring to women, even genuinely disappointed over a NECESSARY c-section as “whining” like 4th graders who didn’t get another turn on the swing before mom told them it was time to go home, is belittling women’s honest and even in the case of a necessary c-section, deserved and genuine emotions over the loss of their birth experience or the trauma involved with having their abdomens sliced open and their baby brutally retrieved from inside of their womb…. Often care providers are also very dismissive and unsupportive emotionally, as well.. probably due to thinking like yours. Which makes a bad situation much worse for the woman. Simply being reassuring and not belittling her emotions with “well, you have a healthy baby!!” could go a LONG WAY to preventing birth traumas!!!

C-section is a brutal surgery. Have you ever watched one? Someone being genuinely disturbed after a surgery is not something to scoff at. It’s only natural many women feel upset afterward.

And in the case of unnecessary c-sections, well, I seriously don’t understand your maligning against these poor women. This unnecessary procedure could have KILLED HER and decreases her risk of successful breastfeeding (which proposes many health risks for the infant!) and increases her risks with her future pregnancies. If it wasn’t a unnecessary procedure, a woman is going to be justifiably VERY disturbed by this! And even if it was necessary, she reserves the right to be disturbed about how she could have died or her future pregnancies will have slightly higher risk to them. Or to be disturbed by the way with which she was treated during her necessary procedure!

The last thing on most, if not all, women minds is simply a scar. Women care very deeply for their babies and THEMSELVES as well.

Wow are missing the mark, I hope you are not an L&D nurse..

Here’s the thing, most of the time moms aren’t faced with a choice between healthy baby or injured/sick/dead baby. What if the choice is healthy baby and healthy mom vs. healthy baby and mom recovering from major surgery? If the baby is going to be healthy either way, doesn’t it matter whether the mom is incapable of sitting up, getting her own baby from the bassinet, or walking to the bathroom without assistance? If the baby is going to be healthy either way, doesn’t it matter if the mom is left with a sensitive scar that interferes with intimacy (both the romantic kind and the mother-child kind) for the rest of her life? (Because of my c-section with my first, my breastfeeding relationship with all five of my biological children was affected — anytime one of them accidentally brushed a foot against my scar while nursing in bed I would jump.) If the baby is going to be healthy either way, doesn’t it matter whether the mother is exposed to increased risks of infection and complications, including increased risk to the health and safety of her future children?

If a c-section is necessary for the health of the baby, then I am all for it. I’ve done that gladly, and if I have future children who need me to undergo surgery to ensure their safety, I won’t hesitate. But if my baby is going to be healthy either way, I’m not interested in unnecessary, painful surgery that increases my risks and impedes my ability to be a mother to my newborn child in those first few weeks. Because I’ve done that, too, and it sucks.

But honestly—half of the problem with the moms comes because they think they are cheated out of some perfect experience.Having babies hurts.Things go wrong, and when they do, they go really wrong.

I disagree. I’ve given birth five times. Twice I experienced legitimate medical issues. One of those times my child was at serious and immediate risk of dying, and ended up in the NICU, but a c-section was not possible. The other time was less serious, but I chose a c-section because I felt it was best. During both of those births I had supportive care providers who provided timely and relevant information, respected my decisions, and ultimately saved my children’s lives and health. Compare that to my unnecesarean and my first VBAC, when my sons were born perfectly healthy, but I was bullied, lied to, and coerced into medical treatments that did not provide ANY benefit and only risked my sons’ health and mine. I am not angry about those births because I was “cheated out of some perfect experience,” or because I am unaware of the genuine risks when something does go wrong during childbirth, I am angry because I was abused and mutilated for NO REASON.

I’ve seen PPH that had nothing to do with a provider tugging on the placenta, I’ve seen tears that had nothing to do with an episiotomy.

True that women sometimes suffer pain and injury in childbirth that are not at all caused by their care providers. However, in my 3 vaginal births I never had my abdominal muscles spontaneously tear open (whereas during my two c-sections they were cut), leaving me helpless and in pain for weeks afterward. Also, none of my vaginal births caused a scar on my uterus which, when my youngest baby’s placenta attached to said scar, endangered my life and my baby’s life, and resulted in a second surgery.

AND I’ve seen way too many women whining that they had a csection that they didn’t need—me, I’d rather not risk the life and health of my baby to avoid a scar.Same with vaginal breech….it is dangerous and foolish.

I’d rather not risk the life and health of my baby to avoid a scar, either, which is why I consented to my second c-section. However, I’d rather not risk my life and health, and the lives and health of my future babies, by having major surgery for no reason.

The baby comes first, but I matter, too!

Do you happen to know the risk to the mother of having a c-section? Why would you want one that wasn’t necessary. I whined for almost 10 years about my unnecessary ceasearn. I was fully justified. (I can still whine, but I dont’ carry it with me anymore.) You know how much I whined about my 2nd C-section for transverse? ZERO! Yea I had some “if we had only known in time to spin him moments.” You know how much I whined about my 3rd c-section where I requested surgery after a very dysfunctional labor only to find that a window was open in my uterus? LESS THAN ZERO. I was so freaking proud of myself for trusting my gut. and I was so freaking proud of my OB for responding “ARE YOU SURE?” with genuine compassion that I might just be making this decision out of exhaustion! I heard the amazment in his voice when he opened me up and and it all made sense as far as why my labor was so off and why the baby would start go into distress if I wasn’t on my right side. I was empowerd my by 2nd and 3rd cesearans. Why? Because I was respected. I wasn’t given the bums rush to make a decision that wasn’t in the best interest of myself or my child. So Fuzzy maybe YOU should consider that those women are mad because they have just figured out that they have been put through the hell of recovering from major abdominal surgery while taking charge of a new life FOR NOTHING! It isn’t about the twinkle lights. It is about being treated like a piece of meat.

It may be deliberate trolling, but my point remains, and I think doctors need to read it: my second baby died, but recovering from Emily’s death was not as difficult as recovering from my first baby’s hospital-managed birth. I didn’t suffer PTSD after Emily died. I didn’t suffer depression after she died (other than normal, healthy grief-associated depression.)

And most of all: no one told me after Emily died that I should be GRATEFUL that the horrible things happened to me.

Women have feelings. Birth is tied to our identities. We are not just baby-vending-machines.