Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jun
23
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Last Time You Were Good, This Time You Are Difficult To Control.”
“Last time you were good, this time you are difficult to control.” -OB to mother discussing the possibility of a VBAC.
There are 73 comments to this post.
So she was “good” when she obienantly “took” her cesearan. But she is difficult now that she is yapping about wanting a VBAC? Or am I guessing again? If I am correct this would be her ah ha moment when she questions that the cesearan was even necessary in the first place and runs screaming from your office. No really she leaves shaking her head in shock and disbelief. Go ahead an ask the office to copy her records now. She will be calling for them soon.
[Reply]
Just an unsubstantiated inkling…but maybe part of the reason OBs are so against midwives is because they innately know that they treat a lot of women like crap. If women have another choice they will run away and not look back.
Perhaps if OBs treated their patients with respect and evidence based medicine they wouldn’t have to be so worried about losing business. Because honestly, a good relationship with your provider is more important than his/her title.
[Reply]
Jespren Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 6:30 am (Quote)
This has actually happened in a lot of places where the Obs/hospitals get midwives banned, fired, or birthcenters closed because they are losing too much business to them. I’ve even read quotes from newspapers/online newsites where the obs state they got them banned because “women prefered them”. It might not be very popular to point out but it reminds me a lot of abortion providers who fight against informed consent laws because they know they will lose too many customers if women are given all the information about their baby before an abortion.
[Reply]
racheleh Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:33 am (Quote)
Jespren, if you are referring to the laws that force a woman to have an invasive sonogram then you are not paying attention. Informed consent is not about doing whats right for the mother to continue as a healthy human, its about shame and guilt and some of those laws specifically allow/encourage/protect doctors to LIE to their patients about things like birth defects. Abortion is a tough decision no matter the situation. Its NOT the governments business. NOt everyone has the resources to be a parent. And no, adoption is not the answer, there are too many ppl out there who don’t put their money where their mouth is and adopt.
[Reply]
Kat Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 10:25 am (Quote)
“And no, adoption is not the answer, there are too many ppl out there who don’t put their money where their mouth is and adopt.”
This is the statement I disagree with specifically.
Would you please explain why there are waiting lists for families wanting to adopt, if there are so few people willing to “put their money where their mouth is” and adopt children? Because if adoption is such an unpopular option you’d think there would be many newborn babies on waiting lists (and no, I am not talking about foster-children whose gestational units’ parental rights may or may not be terminated) and no parents on waiting lists praying for that phone call to tell them a courageous birth mother has decided to include them in her adoption plan.
Since I am personally acquainted with at least 3 local families who have been through the process of adding to their family via adoption, and one who has given the amazing gift of being a birth family and making an adoption plan, I don’t think it’s as rare/impractical as you think it is.
I am certainly open to correction if you have a credible source to correct my perception. 
And I hope you can understand my “tone” as I know it is difficult to decipher in a text format. I am asking a question here, open-minded, not attempting to attack but exchange information.
[Reply]
Birth Unplugged Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 12:14 pm (Quote)
I realize this discussion has gone quite off-topic, but I wanted to put in my 2 cents.
I also disagree with the notion that there is a lack of people willing to adopt. There are many, many people who want to adopt. It is very difficult to be selected and I believe the process is too complicated. Many people choose foreign adoption because it is too difficult to adopt domestically.
I don’t believe women should be manipulated into making any particular decision, but I do think that they should be given complete information about their options so that they can have a full understanding of what they are deciding to do.
Margaret Sanger, who was the president of Planned Parenthood in the ’50′s, supported eugenics. I am disturbed by the idea of abortion as a tool for preventing poor and/or black people from reproducing.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:16 pm (Quote)
Margaret Sanger’s been dead for decades, Planned Parenthood likewise hasn’t been remotely interested in promoting eugenics policies in decades, abortion doesn’t get promoted often as a tool for controlling the population of poor minority groups because abortion hasn’t been available through Medicaid for years and it costs a pretty sizable chunck of money if you are impoverished and on a fixed budget (which is one reason why a number of women die in the United States from self-administered abortion attempts via oil of pennyroyal despite surgical and pharmaceutical methods being available and legal), adoption is definitely a good option that ought to be promoted more widely (and believe it or not, Planned Parenthood does in fact assist with that, which goes to show you how far the organization has grown beyond the vision of Margaret Sanger), and this is WAY off topic.
[Reply]
Jespren Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 3:18 pm (Quote)
This is not true, PP has been recorded agreeing to use contributions only to abort minority babies for instance, blacks are far more likely to have an abortion than whites (or other minorities) and PP chooses prodominatenly minority neighborhoods to place their clinics. And no, I wasn’t refering to laws requiring sonograms (although I do think the clinic should be required to OFFER them), rather laws requiring correct medical information about the development of the baby, such as when the heart starts beating, when they feel pain etc. PP in specific but abortion providers in general have been shown on recordings and video and even in their own literature to lie about such things. If a women goes in a gets told at 14 weeks ‘its just a blob of tissue’ she’s going to feel differently than if she’s told it has a heartbeat, can move independantly, has fingers/toes, etc.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 4:59 pm (Quote)
I don’t believe in abortion, but neither do I believe in the conspiracy theories provided by the Radiance Foundation and similar groups, or other sources of propaganda.
And this is still way off topic.
I get off on tangents on this forum and so do other posters, but I think this particular hot button issue is best left alone here. Most of us here have definite views on the subject one way or anothe, because we’re the sort of people who know our own minds and stand firmly for what we believe in. There are better places to look for people to convince, I think.
[Reply]
Kat Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 7:22 am (Quote)
I realized it was way way off-topic. I only posted because there seemed to be some misinformation about adoption being presented, and one of us (the poster or myself) needed to become better informed.
I am sorry, my intent wasn’t to stir up debate at all, just exchange info about adoption issues.
[Reply]
racheleh Reply:
June 25th, 2010 at 8:12 am (Quote)
Kat,
I understand that adoption does help. Its just not the entire solution. Many people do exclude by default a huge range of children that _need_ love the most in the foster system and older children.
Adoption wasn’t where I intended to go, but as the last sentence I can see it was easy to pick out..
What I was noting was that the original person I replied to thinks that there are some situations where a woman should be forced to undergo procedures and be told things for her own good so that she will make a decision that they agree with. And she thinks that the government should do it through laws that undermine the physician/patient relationship. No DR should ever be able to LIE about birth defects.
When I follow that line of reasoning it leads to the thought that If the government can tell you you _should_ have a baby the government can tell you you _shouldn’t_ .
The so-called ‘informed consent’ laws regarding abortion are a continuation of the mal – informed idea that pregnant women need to be told what to do.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:16 am (Quote)
There was a quote to that effect in the Nashua Telegraph in 2005 when the doctors at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center/Nashua stripped the midwives of their hospital privileges.
I found that disgusting. They’re supposedly caring for women, and the best way to do that is to remove the women’s choice because they prefer it.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:28 am (Quote)
Oh, but that’s all right, because it’s ALL FOR OUR OWN GOOD. We’re too stupid/immature/hysterical/female to know what is in our own best interests.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:37 am (Quote)
They didn’t even clothe it that way. The hospital administrator or one of the doctors themselves said the doctors were losing money because women were choosing midwives, and therefore the doctors moved to protect their income.
Nowhere was the good of the women invoked. They made it clear they were following the money.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:12 am (Quote)
That sort of honesty can get one sued, unless one has a few officials in one’s pockets.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:14 am (Quote)
On what grounds would it get anyone sued? They weren’t outlawing *midwifery*. They were just saying the midwives who chose to work at their practice were no longer allowed to deliver because they changed the regulations.
WOmen like me who preferred midwives could feel free to take our business elsewhere. Which I did.
[Reply]
Sarah Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 11:45 am (Quote)
*sigh* Dartmouth-Hitchcock. That’s where I had my unnecesarean in 2004. I had my VBAC at APD. APD FTW!
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 11:50 am (Quote)
The Birth Cottage, in Milford, rocks. The midwives there attended my homebirth.
[Reply]
Sarah Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 12:01 pm (Quote)
That’s about two hours away for me (I’m in VT), so not one of the ones I looked at, but it looks awesome – I’m checking out their website right now. The midwife at APD for my VBAC was a former homebirth midwife, she was awesome. I wish I had known better when I had my first baby.
[Reply]
A) I’m not 16, so lets not worry about me being “good.” That kind of sounds like you’re going to take away my allowance next.
B) I think the main issue in this is that you want to control me doc. Honestly, I just don’t think that’s going to work. No matter what my insurance is or how you’re getting paid the end result is that I’m your customer. If I choose to go elsewhere you don’t get squat. Squat.. hmm.. think I’ll go squat in a field instead of coming to you!
OP- Hope you got your Vbac.
Meghan- I think you have a good point in your last paragraph. I had my first and so far only birth with an OB and it wasn’t a great experience by any stretch of the imagination. I’m seriously considering running screaming from anyone associated with a hospital or birth center (My first birth was IN a birth center and still blew).
[Reply]
The Deranged Housewife had this to say,
Jun 23, 2010 @ 6:34 am (Quote)
If I didn’t already know the context of this comment, it would sound like something straight out of Orwell’s 1984.
[Reply]
What is it about medical personnel that makes them think they can treat a grown woman like she’s 6?
When my youngest was born, I was all set to go HOME a few hours after her birth. The midwife said I was fine to go home. The pediatrician said my daughter was fine to go home. The pediatric *nurse* on the other hand had alllll kinds of attitude for me. She wanted to take my baby away and put her under the warmer again. We had no intention of staying another minute, so we continued our preparations to depart. She said “I want you to think REALLY HARD about what you’re doing!”
Yes, Miss Nursie. I have thought about it. I want to rest and recover from giving birth in my own home where I can get comfortable. I know how to breastfeed having done it successfully 4 times, I know what normal newborns do, and I know the number for the pediatrician and the way to the ER if something came up. Her temperature will be fine, it’s a warm and sunny spring day. She’s dressed in a sleeper and a hat that covers every inch of skin except a tiny pink patch of face. The vehicle we will be driving has been sitting in direct sunlight all day in the hospital parking lot, and is probably uncomfortably warm. She isn’t going to freeze to death on the way home!
She’s 4 now. Loves to draw, write her name, knits little “scarves” for her friends, and is generally the most amazing 4yo I have ever met, despite my alleged lack of “thinking really hard” about her care as a newborn.
[Reply]
Cmat Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:12 am (Quote)
You DID think really hard about it. I think your decision was pretty sound. I’m hoping I can get out of dodge quickly next time too.
[Reply]
Jen Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 1:28 pm (Quote)
We had the same thing happen when my daughter was born, except I didn’t have the cajones to put my foot down and demand that they unhook everything, bring me my baby and let us go home.
Both care providers (mine and my daughter’s) had given us discharge papers several days before the hospital gave us their blessing to go home. I’ve always found it amusing that they cited excessively high bili levels as the reason, but they NEVER treated her for it until demanding that we rent a bili-bed for her to be in at home if we wanted to be discharged.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch had this to say,
Jun 23, 2010 @ 8:22 am (Quote)
I’m not bad, Doctor; I’m just DRAWN that way.
Now shut up. By the way, I’ve decided you’re not an ideal care provider for me. You’re too hard to control. Put down that scalpel.
[Reply]
Um, excuse me? CONTROL? Seriously???!!! That is so infuriating! See, that is the key word here for me. Anytime someone openly admits that they want to control you (regardless of the situation, actually) you should immediately leave!!! Run!! And how dare he reference her being “good” – what does that mean anyway?! Having worked in a hospital, I can tell you what it seems to mean: obeying all hospital staff (doctors, nurses, housekeepers, etc.) at all times, not questioning anyone or anything, eating all of your food regardless if it is cold or you are nauseous, NOT using the call bell at all, keeping your family out lest they interfere with the staff/procedures/ask questions/bring flowers that either make the nurses jealous or make them sneeze…. AARRGGHHHHHH!!! I cant stand it! GOOD?! She is a woman! I wouldnt even use “good” when talking to my daughter (we never tell her that she is good or bad, that is such a qualifier. we instead tell her that her behavior is pleasing, kind, helpful or rude, wild, unkind, unsafe (or even non-compliant if we have told her to do something directly!). It gives her ownership and keeps judgement out of it.)
It is infuriating that so many OBs openly state how controlling and condescending they are. Almost like the know that the women will just “take it” so why treat them any other way? This is why I love teaching preconception education to high school and college age students. Though some are already mothers (and they can use the info if they would like another child), many are not and we talk about options before they find themselves in a position of having to make such an important decision (who to choose as a provider)… they can take plenty of time to really go within, find out what is really important to their soul, educate themselves, and then hire a midwife (or doctor if they truly want that) who will be a good fit.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 10:01 am (Quote)
“It is infuriating that so many OBs openly state how controlling and condescending they are. Almost like the know that the women will just “take it” so why treat them any other way?”
The vast majority of mothers do, and are grateful for it. If they have anything to complain about at all, it’s either got to do with basic rudeness on the part of physician and/or staff, or the overall inconvenience of office/hospital routine and isn’t it nice that pregnancy and birth doesn’t happen more than a few times at most…
Women who question whether something is absolutely necessary or if there is another way to give birth, or a different place to give birth (birthing centre, home, midwife’s home, etc), or a different care provider who might have a different philosophy of birth, are the exception, not the rule.
Which is one reason ACOG and its ancillary helpers (i.e. the nursing staff at hospitals, the nurse practitioners at the doctor’s office who support the doctor without question, etc) can run things the way they do. Most mothers are convinced that birth is a dangerous emergency, unbearably painful without that epidural, or both, and support the current system. I’m sure you’ve seen the mommy wars on other fora.
I think it is so cool that you are teaching preconception literacy, by the way. I wish I’d had something like that as part of sex ed class when I was growing up. Also the Weschler method of fertility awareness – I don’t think it’s a good form of birth control for teenagers, for various reasons (irregular menstrual cycles being one of the more important reasons) but it would get girls familiar with their own bodies, and aware that all parts of our body are beautiful and have a beautiful function, a natural function, not something to try to call by euphemisms or blush about or try to ignore. Boys learn to handle their genitalia from a young age because that’s how the plumbing works. (and if they’re uncut, it eventually becomes part of hygiene as well.) Girls should be likewise at ease with themselves. Shame should not be a part of the human condition.
It amazes me how many women – adult women – are still embarrassed by anything having to do with their vaginas. I took a mirror to a routine gynecological appointment a couple of years ago, one of the few times I went to a family practitioner rather than Planned Parenthood, and she was pleasantly amazed – apparently I was the first woman in years who actually had an interest in seeing her cervix. What, aren’t most women interested? Why not?
I think knowing all about how birth naturally works and how the female body naturally works is an important aspect of learning to love and respect ourselves. Learning to assert ourselves and learning to listen to our own inner voice to determine what we want and need are important, too.
My high school sex ed classes covered the anatomy of the reproductive organs (but only by name and appearance, not so much their exact function, although I could be misremembering because most of us failed our tests the first time we were quizzed on the subject, due to embarrassment), STDs, and (unusually for a Catholic school) the various types of birth control that existed, their effectiveness rates, and how they worked, although as students in a Catholic school the qualification was that we would use these after we married. I wish we’d also covered things like basic health, preconception, pregnancy, birthing options, parenting philosophies, relationships… Some of this got covered in guidance class, but overall, it was piecemeal, and I think it would be more sensible to teach all together as an integrated whole.
[Reply]
This was during an annual exam appointment. I refused the pap smear and walked out of her office. Five days later I received a letter firing me as patient. My walking out was not enough it seems.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 4:23 pm (Quote)
WOAH! You weren’t even pregnant yet and he was trying to get you under control?
I love the fact that he fired you after you walked out. Trying to save face. one last attempt at control. “See! I made you NOT COME BACK! Nyah nyah!”
*sigh* This doctor wasn’t in kindergarten like the one we saw a few days ago (the stretchy uterus comment) was he?
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 5:03 pm (Quote)
Part of me wants to say, “But that would imply maturity sufficient enough to be allowed to graduate to kindergarten.”
However, the passive-aggressive “You didn’t walk out on me, I fired *you* as a patient” malarchy reminds me more of middle school cattiness than anything else.
[Reply]
Prachi Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 7:56 am (Quote)
She sent me the letter stating “We strive to secure very good care to our patients to seek the very best outcome for the mother and her baby. Therefor we feel it would serve you better to seek services of another doctor that is more in tune with your vision as to how to proceed with your care obstetrically and gynecologically”
To which I replied in very good english ”
My vision for provider for my gynecological and obstetrical needs was one that would give me a fairchance for trial of labor and will have faith in my body so that “if” a c section is suggested I know its one that is medically necessary for me and the baby. I had never ever wanted a provider who wants to “control” me and hence refused the annual exam at my last appointment after talking with you.
I am sorry that you won’t get to deliver my baby and sorry that you have lost a valuable delivery experience and patient.”
[Reply]
CCindy Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 4:56 am (Quote)
Another crappy female doctor. I’m always so disappointed when the crappy ones are female. And she has the CYA thing down doesn’t she!
[Reply]
Prachi Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 7:57 am (Quote)
Yups makes me gag when such comments comes from female doctors who do have kids of there own.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 8:28 am (Quote)
If it makes you feel better, I have a funny feeling most of them have a colleague section their children out of their abdomens without even trying labour instead. It would help explain why they’re so blythe about recommending surgery for this, that, and the other obstetric thing, and why they are so clueless when we express our disappointment at not having had a more natural birth and less interventions.
They probably have no idea what they’re missing.
[Reply]
This doesn’t surprise me. I was reading a list of 45 Things Your Doctor Won’t Tell You a couple months ago and came across one where the OB admitted that he was taught in medical that if a patient wasn’t being compliant that “Putting a patient in a gown casts her in a position of subservience.”
So it’s obvious that they are taught from the get go that they should always be obeyed. Scary.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:19 pm (Quote)
Thanks, you just gave me something new to google…
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:58 pm (Quote)
Found it – Reader’s Digest article, “41 Things Your doctor Won’t Tell You”
This scary little titbit was on the last page of the article:
“60% of doctors don’t follow hand-washing guidelines.
Source: CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
96% of doctors agree they should report impaired or incompetent colleagues or those who make serious mistakes, but …
46% of them admit to having turned a blind eye at least once.
Source: Annals of Internal Medicine”
More than half don’t follow hand washing guidelines, and almost half will cover for the incompetence of a colleague. I wonder what Dr. Ignatz Semmelweiss would have said about that? (Remember, he’s the Hungarian doctor whose obstetric patients in the Vienna Lying-In hospital died less from childbed fever than the patients of other doctors, because he promoted handwashing. Caused quite a protest and a stink among the medical profession when he did so, too. They didn’t like being accused of being dirty or germy. It was common practice to head up to the maternity ward after spending time autopsying dead bodies in the morgue, but heaven forbid anyone accuse the omniscient, benevolent doctors of having germs on their hands…)
And people say a hospital is the safest place to have a baby? Yeah. Right. Maybe if your doctor is part of the 40% that regularly wash their hands, and the 54% that have been honest about reporting incompetent colleagues.
Oh, and get this gem of a quote:
“The most unsettling thing for a physician is when the patient doesn’t trust you or believe you.
–Obstetrician-gynecologist, New York City”
Um. Yeah. I wonder if he washes his hands?
[Reply]
Kit Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 3:25 pm (Quote)
A OB that many members of the family have used (“Diva Doctor”) would agree with the OBGYN from New York. He’s actually told me that nearly word for word.
He says he keeps his paitent’s best health at foremost, and when he says its time for a C section, its time. But on the other hand, he has the lowest rates in the hosputal for c sections, and he’s beloved by everyone I know who has used him… so sometimes maybe the OB is trying hard.
Poor OP though… what a nasty doctor she had.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 4:25 pm (Quote)
I’m sure it’s unsettling when your patients don’t believe you, but maybe it’s unsettling in a look-in-the-mirror type of way. Because if the patient doesn’t believe you, maybe you need to look at the way you’re practicing medicine to see if she has just cause.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 5:06 pm (Quote)
Yeah – I imagine the ultrasupportive doctor with the low, low c-section rates gets told, “I don’t believe you,” or looked at suspiciously, a lot less than Dr. Runs-With-Scissors-Looking-For-Perineums-In-Distress.
[Reply]
Kit Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 4:18 pm (Quote)
I don’t know how often it happens. He just remarked this one day, in a “Geeze your cousin is an easy paitent” way.
And the situation he quoted was a matter of a woman who was an emergency transfer and wouldn’t believe him that her baby needed to be taken by C section. He wouldn’t say how it all ended though. I asked and suddenly he was insanely interested in my cousin’s choices of baby names, so I dropped it. (He apparently loved the name Cousin chose, and waxed a bit poetic about what a pretty name it was, and how it would’ve been his son’s name if his son were a girl.)
[Reply]
Michelle Potter Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 3:25 pm (Quote)
I wonder what Dr. Ignatz Semmelweiss would have said about that? (Remember, he’s the Hungarian doctor whose obstetric patients in the Vienna Lying-In hospital died less from childbed fever than the patients of other doctors, because he promoted handwashing. Caused quite a protest and a stink among the medical profession when he did so, too. They didn’t like being accused of being dirty or germy. It was common practice to head up to the maternity ward after spending time autopsying dead bodies in the morgue, but heaven forbid anyone accuse the omniscient, benevolent doctors of having germs on their hands…)
To be fair, germ theory was not confirmed until after Dr. Semmelweiss’ death. True, some doctors of the time didn’t believe it was at all possible that their gentlemanly hands could be dirty. But mainly it was that the idea of diseases — especially many different, unrelated diseases — being caused by tiny invisible dirt went against the very core of everything the medical community believed about health. (Doctors believed that childbed fever was not one disease, but many as-yet-unidentified diseases, that every case of disease had a unique cause, and that disease was related to imbalances of the “humors” and to “bad air.” The idea of one cause for all of these diseases in all of these women, totally unrelated to anything they understood to cause disease, made absolutely no sense.) Dr. Semmelweiss himself didn’t even understand why or how hand-washing worked, believing that the problem was bits of “cadaverous material” on the doctors’ hands, and choosing his hand-washing solution based on how well it removed the putrid smell. The whole thing was a good lesson in not stubbornly holding onto what we have always believed, and being willing to learn from new advances and findings.
And people say a hospital is the safest place to have a baby? Yeah. Right. Maybe if your doctor is part of the 40% that regularly wash their hands, and the 54% that have been honest about reporting incompetent colleagues.
And if your doctor’s colleagues are not among those who turned a blind eye.
[Reply]
Andrea Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:22 pm (Quote)
Another reason I skipped putting on the gown late in pregnancy – I wasn’t getting cervical checks, so no need to take off my pants!
[Reply]
THe Deranged Housewife Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:42 pm (Quote)
I am reading that list – it was a chiropractor, not an OB, who said that about putting a patient in a gown. But still …
Carry on. 
[Reply]
Jen Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 1:34 pm (Quote)
I would believe it. A hospital birth I attended recently involved an MD that threatened to come in and cut the dress the mother was wearing off of her and make her wear the gown if she didn’t start cooperating.
[Reply]
Chelsea Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 2:20 pm (Quote)
I probably would have threatened to streak around the hospital naked. lol
[Reply]
Kat Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 9:51 pm (Quote)
That’s awful!
I didn’t remove the dress I was wearing for my youngest child’s birth until about 2 minutes before she was born. No one said one word to me about it.
I was waiting for the go-ahead to get in the tub, I’d been looking forward to that warm water the whole time we were in the car. When they said it was ready, my dress went one way and I went the other. I didn’t even care that one of our church friends was along as an “unofficial doula,” I just got naked. Even looking back on it now my inclination is to laugh, not blush.
What DIFFERENCE does it make what the Mom wears, as long as her clothing is not preventing the baby from exiting her body? She could wear a gold bikini top and belly dance skirt if that’s what she was comfortable with… baby is still coming out the same way.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
June 25th, 2010 at 4:44 am (Quote)
It’s entirely symbolic (unless the mom is having surgery; I’m just talking about a normal labor.) If you think about it, where are the places in life that we often see uniforms? Well, in highly-ordered and hierarchical institutions. Such as the police force, the military…and prisons. And the uniform of a hospital gown sends a very strong non-verbal message to the mother about her position in the hierarchy.
The clothing we choose is part of our identity. Removing our choice of clothing is a part of removing our self-determination as soon as we’re in labor, and as you said, it’s not necessary. If the mother accepts that her giant t-shirt or her belly-dance skirt may get birth goop on it, then that should be the end of it.
(My midwife did, however, strongly recommend I remove my pajama pants before giving birth. She said she’s fished babies out of clothing before, but it makes it easier for her if the mom is at least undressed from the waist down. LOL! And that I can see, but I also didn’t feel like doing it until I was just about ready to have the baby.)
[Reply]
Michelle Potter Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 3:30 pm (Quote)
Here’s the link for everyone else:
http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/41-secrets-for-your-next-doctor-visit/article75920.html?epid=
[Reply]
Michelle Potter Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 3:48 pm (Quote)
PS, did y’all notice at the end of the article, it says that when a doctor charges you $100 for 30 minutes, *only* $41 go into his pocket? That’s $82 an hour! I made $15 an hour at my last job, and I had to talk to my customers until their problem was solved, no matter how long it took!
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 5:45 pm (Quote)
Or, to put it another way, that’s a 41% commission. Most commissioned sales reps would KILL for a similar commission rate.
[Reply]
lol, my OB told me with my first birth the baby was too big (9lbs 3 oz)and i couldn’t get past 7cm so i had to have a c/s. i just had a homebirth 2 weeks ago, no tearing with a 10 lb baby naturally
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 5:46 pm (Quote)
Excellent!
You are now entitled to send your old OB a gloating birth announcement. 
[Reply]
Add Your Comment.
Previous Post
« “You Are Tighter Than A Tick.” Next Post
“…Push As Hard As You Can Until Your Face Is Red…” »
« “You Are Tighter Than A Tick.” Next Post
“…Push As Hard As You Can Until Your Face Is Red…” »
You seem to have inverted the hierarchy, Doctor. You’ve been employed to check for health risks, not to control me. I’m the one calling the shots. If you can’t handle that, then I’ll have to find a new doctor.
BTW: “good” does not mean “docile.”
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 5:21 am Jane(Quote)
This gets even worse if the doctor in the scenario happens to be male.
And then you can bring it out into all other areas of life:
“Last year you were good, but this year you want the right to vote.”
“Last year you were good, but this year you want criminals to be treated with due process and not ‘disappeared’ during the middle of the night.”
“Last year you were good, but this year you want us to stop dumping nuclear waste in the rivers.”
So advocating for one’s own health is “bad” according to this doctor. But the #1 provider of prenatal care for the mother is….the mother! She’s not talking about shaking down grammar school kids for their milk money. She’s talking about medical reasons to avoid abdominal surgery. That’s GOOD.
[Reply]
Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:25 am Sarah Dorrance-Minch(Quote)
That al depends on your perspective.
Good does not mean “docile” is one is the client.
It does, however, mean “docile” if one is an obstetrician or a maternity ward nurse or a NICU nurse, and one is describing an ideal patient.
[Reply]