Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jun
21
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…I’ve Seen Babies With Good Fetal Heart Tones Be Born With Apgars of Zero!”
“Well, I’ve seen babies with good fetal heart tones be born with Apgars of zero!” -L&D nurse to mother when told the mother didn’t want pitocin.
There are 25 comments to this post.
Sheva had this to say,
Jun 21, 2010 @ 5:48 am (Quote)
I’d love to hear the REAL story, the whole story, behind that comment. Like, what did the docs do between the good heart tones and the zero apgar? Because zero apgars don’t just happen instantly. Actually, I know of one case where it happened – something ruptured in the baby, but that was because of a birth defect undetectable before birth. And pitocin would not have helped. It would have probably caused the rupture way earlier.
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Jane Reply:
June 21st, 2010 at 6:18 am (Quote)
Yeah, Emily had great heart tones but due to her anencephaly was born limp and not breathing and I’m not sure if her heart was even beating. She did suddenly start to breathe when my husband baptized her and then lived for two hours.
And she WAS delivered with pitocin, so apparently it’s magical APGAR-protecting properties were over-rated.
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Sheva had this to say,
Jun 21, 2010 @ 5:51 am (Quote)
Also, (sweetly), are you saying pitocin prevents zero apgar and ensures a healthy baby? How, exactly, does it accomplish that? Because I *thought* that pitocin stresses the baby.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 21st, 2010 at 9:57 am (Quote)
Evidence isn’t important.
Lying to the patient about multiple babies that seemed perfectly healthy, until they were born dead (presumably because their mothers fought to have “selfish” low-intervention births or something along those lines) is what is important.
Routines are important.
Efficiency on the Friedman curve is important. Keep everything moving in assemply-line fashion, that’s one key to keeping the doctors placated while also ensuring the mothers don’t die of horrible complications from long labours (because everybody knows that labours are super-dangerous if they putter along, especially VBAC labours, which have no business taking place anyway, right?)
Preserving authority is important. The OBs, most of them can be real jerks, and the patients will make your job miserable too if you let them get away with it, so don’t let them give you any guff. You are the one in charge here, whether anyone knows it or not, at least until the last five minutes or so when the almighty arrogant doctor shows up to deliver the package. You are the one that knows best how to keep the patient safe and well cared for. And you deserve to be recognized for it. So don’t pay attention to these silly birth plans that are one of today’s fads. Nothing ever goes to plan, anyway, and you know better than these whiners how to best ensure a safe outcome and a healthy baby… and do so in a way that works it into your schedule and your rounds without causing any disruption anywhere else.
Evidence? Pfft.
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Maybe all these nurses and doctors should read this: http://www.nurturingheartsbirthservices.com/blog/?p=747&cpage=1#comment-3393 .. as well as Ina May’s Guide to Breastfeeding. Idiot. Pitocin *is* the Devil!
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Yeah, I am also perplexed by the correlation and/or causation implied in this post. Can’t wait to hear more.
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Jane Reply:
June 21st, 2010 at 12:02 pm (Quote)
This is from the mom whose quote was posted yesterday as well. It’s part of her birth story here:
http://thefeministbreeder.com/jules-michael-birth-story/
The hospital was downright hostile to her at points, but the story has a happy ending.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch had this to say,
Jun 21, 2010 @ 9:48 am (Quote)
I am beginning to wonder if one of the subjects one must pass in nursing school is How To Make Idiotic Statements To Coerce Patients Into Following Your All-Important Efficient Routines And Standards, While Attempting To Sound As Authoritative As Possible In The Hopes That Even when They Don’t Fall For It, They’ll Be Too Bullied To Object Anyway.
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Jane Reply:
June 21st, 2010 at 12:06 pm (Quote)
See, if they’d said this to me, I would have taken that as permission to remove the freaking heart monitor, because if reassuring heart tones mean NOTHING, then the only reason to wear the belt is to get the doctor off the hook in the case of a bad outcome.
Right?
Because you show them a questionable heart tracing and they scream “DANGER!!!!” and run in circles and page the surgeon and froth at the mouth and wail and mourn and get out the knives.
And in this case, you show them a perfect heart tracing and they scream “DANGER!!!1!!!!” and “A perfect heartbeat doesn’t mean the baby is actually alive at all!” and they run to grab the pitocin to reincarnate your little zombeh babeh.
Yah. So…uh, my point is, if no matter what the heart tracing is, you’re going to tell me the baby is in fatal danger, then what’s the point of the belt at all? It is ONLY to give the doctor an excuse to cut you or as legal defense if something goes wrong. According to this nurse, it in no way benefits either the mother or the baby.
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Rebecca Reply:
June 21st, 2010 at 12:13 pm (Quote)
I know it’s been said before, but Jane you certainly have a way with words. Yes, there is definitely wailing and gnashing of teeth in L&D wards. In most cases I really don’t think babies can be born without some degree of pissing and moaning by the staff.
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TheFeministBreeder had this to say,
Jun 21, 2010 @ 1:34 pm (Quote)
Ahhh, mine again. My birth story is just chalk-full of gems like this! You can read the rest of the story here: http://thefeministbreeder.com/jules-michael-birth-story/
The short version is that this nurse came on shift in the morning. She said “You’ve been here all night, why not get some Pitocin?” and I told her I was NOT getting Pitocin (I had been fighting it off for hours) because at that point, my labor did not need to be “sped up” and my baby’s heart tones were fine. She said “Well, I’ve seen babies with good heart tones be born with APGARS of Zero”, at which point I turned to my husband and gave him the “GET HER OUT OF HERE BEFORE I STRANGLE HER!!” look.
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Lindsey Carr-Ruck had this to say,
Jun 21, 2010 @ 4:27 pm (Quote)
I bet she got an A+ in Lying 101.
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JulietsButterfly had this to say,
Jun 21, 2010 @ 4:33 pm (Quote)
I know someone who had a very low Apgar after being born via c/s. My oldest brother was a rcs in ’84 before my mom ever heard of a VBAC. They calc’d her EDD by her LMP and took him a bit too early. Oops! He survived and is in his 20′s now, but still.
I didn’t mind pit much since I was induced and my dr was pretty low intervention (the pit was the most intervening of the whole labor). I was adamant about keeping it on a very low setting, and after a while my body just took over. I can’t believe that they wanted to pit TFB above me since she was a VBAC and pit is definitely a no no for those!
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Let me guess, she wants to push the pit to prove her point?
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