Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jun
29
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Unless You Want This Kid Riding the ‘Short Bus,’ I Suggest You Change Positions.”
“Unless you want this kid riding the “short bus,” I suggest that you change positions.” L&D nurse to a mother whose baby was having minor heart rate decelerations.
There are 51 comments to this post.
Disgusting comment, but if the baby is having trouble and the nurse suggests a change in position rather than running in circles and screaming and shouting for a c-section that part is good. Any reference to the short bus is RUDE. But suggesting changing positions is good. You only have to sit in the corner for 5 mintues to think about what you said!
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Sheva had this to say,
Jun 29, 2010 @ 5:43 am (Quote)
Fist of all, good suggestion, lousy wording. They should make pacifiers in the shape of feet for people like this.
Also, aren’t decels a natural response to contractions? Isn’t it just if they last too long or start or end at the wrong point in the contraction that it’s a cause for concern? Please clarify or correct me if I’m wrong.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 8:31 am (Quote)
Yes on both counts. For added flavour, let’s serve the foot-shaped pacifiers with a dipping sauce made from Similac, since most mothers are pressured to bottle feed “at least at night, as a supplement, so you can get your sleep; a little formula never hurt anybody” regardless of what the new mother’s stance on breastfeeding is.
lectronic monitors are also not exactly the be-all, end-all detectors of foetal distress. They don’t even always accurately detect things in the first place – if the mother shifts position, the readings can be completely off, which is no doubt one reason (among many) why maternity ward nurses prefer to have labouring mothers on their backs or semi-recumbent, lying nice and still, not getting active or doing much of anything (and if that hurts too much, well, aren’t epidurals the Cadillac of pain relief methods, and used by pretty much everybody, anyway? Natural childbirth is sooooooo overrated. Let’s just call the anaesthesiologist now, shall we? You lie there and don’t move. We’ll take good care of you.)
Although if the mother has been flat on her back and compressing the vena cava, she might want to change positions anyway, not just to get oxygen to the baby, but because she’d probably be a lot more comfortable in just about any other position. If the nurse is trying to use minor decelerations to bully her into getting her on her back or otherwise lying down nice and still and not making any extra trouble for her, OTOH, she’s a blithering idiot.
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Dawn Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 9:54 am (Quote)
Had a bully nurse once who wanted me on the bed and I had a horrible labor…turns out baby was OP all along. I recall my baby had a decel when I let her check me on my back. She turned me to my side and still, a decel (80′s).. I said, “I’m sitting up” and she said, “I’m not comfortable with that.” When I sat up baby’s heart rate went up to 120 immediately. uhmmmm all better. But after that she was a PAIN. I was in labor and became all “good patient” too. I received pressure to stay in bed and ended up on my left side because I didn’t get myself out of bed (didn’t want to fight anymore). She then cooed, “see, that’s the best the baby’s heart rate has been this whole time.” She just wanted me still. You know what got the baby born though? When the OB realized I was carrying a baby in OP and he said, “let her move, squat, whatever.” Ten minutes later (according to my husband’s record as I didn’t know the time at all) my baby was born. All I needed was freedom to move and not be oppressed by my nurse. Apgars were 8 and 9 I believe. So much for a distressed baby.
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Kat Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 10:17 am (Quote)
But… but… the nurses are trying to control us for our GOOD, and we are just hormonal overreacting extremists!
Seriously though, I am glad your doctor was SANE and put a stop to the nurse on a power trip. It royally sucks that you even had to deal with a power-tripping nurse in the first place though.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 2:31 pm (Quote)
Yeah, it sounds like you actually had one of the GOOD doctors. Lucky. 
Don’t even get me started on the way a lot of maternity ward nurses put on this “I’m going to care for you my way, which is the best way, and you’ll be just fine if you simply follow along and don’t ask any questions or make trouble, so be a good girl and you’ll see how nice this will be and how much healthier your baby will be at the end of it.” With plenty of sugar to help the medicine go down. No, forget the sugar. It’s saccharine they they add to their medicine.
When books talk about “mothering the new mother,” that does NOT mean “treating her like a child who doesn’t know anything and needs to be guided and controlled so that nothing goes wrong.”
Urgh.
Brusque, obvious bullying is almost easier to deal with. It’s easier to be rude to. Telling an officious would-be medical nurturer who means well but knows nothing about how natural birth actually works feels almost like kicking a puppy. (I had a couple of those wander in and out of my suite during my first, “Murphy Was An Optimist” birth. The second one, the hospital VBAC, had one halfway decent nurse, and a couple of obvious bullies.)
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“Lets see if your baby prefers a different position.”
“Changing positions might help baby out a little bit”
“I think if we get you into a different position we might be able to help baby out with those decels.”
Need I go on?
Honestly? Is it so difficult to talk to a labouring woman with respect?
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Brittany G. had this to say,
Jun 29, 2010 @ 7:02 am (Quote)
Early decels are common in active labor and are caused by head compression. A lot of babies have them right after the water breaks as well because of the loss of that cushion. lol On the fetal strip they look like a mirror image of the contraction usually, and they generally aren’t very deep. They aren’t any cause for real concern, just need to be watched. Variable decels are caused by cord compression. The baby could grab or lay on the cord or it could be compressed during a contraction. On the strip they look like a U or V. Like early decels, they just need to be watched. Late decels begin after the peak of the contraction, are generally deeper decels, and last longer. These are caused by uteroplacental insufficiency, basically meaning the placenta isn’t getting good blood flow for some reason. These can happen after mom gets an epidural because of the drop on BP that often occurs about 15min later (and if this is the reason the decels end when moms BP is corrected), hemorrhage, placental abruption, etc. They aren’t good no matter what and unless birth is about to happen they usually require a section (and it really is necessary) because baby won’t get enough oxygen if they continue. Position changes can help any of these decels (and oxygen for mom doesn’t hurt either! Lol). The nurse had the right idea, just an absolutely terrible way of putting it. But trust me, tact is not something they teach in nursing school.
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Brittany G. had this to say,
Jun 29, 2010 @ 7:12 am (Quote)
Sorry for commenting again! I just thought I would add that the nurse saying the baby could be on the short bus is apparently her way of saying that the baby might have brain damage if the decels aren’t corrected. Obviously that can happen so maybe she was trying to tell mom that without actually saying it? Terrible choice of words but she was right in a roundabout sort of way. No one flip out and think I’m defending her here because that’s not what I’m doing. I just know how nurses are supposed to think, which focuses on preventing complications. So that’s probably really what she was trying to do, but she either sucks at therapeutic communication or she’s worked in L&D so long she’s jaded.
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With my second child, baby had a very strong reaction (in terms of low heartrate) to certain positions while I was between pushes. It was unmistakable, and somewhat scary, to listen to the hand-held doppler. But my midwife and her nurse were SO much smarter than the nurse in this post- instead of freaking me out further, they just kept reminding me “This baby likes it a lot better when you are on your side- let’s go back to on your side” and “Hmm… this baby doesn’t react well to when you are standing up. Let’s get you into a semi-sit again.” And sure enough, those positions took pressure off whatever was being pinched and baby’s rates all went right back to perfect levels. No need to allude to my child being brain damaged- just remind me to shift into a better spot!
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch had this to say,
Jun 29, 2010 @ 8:43 am (Quote)
1) If Dr. Hon, the inventor of the electronic foetal monitor, later told people that it wasn’t meant to be used routinely, and that the false alarms monitoring caused have resulted in too many drastic and unnecessary interventions and ultimately degraded rather than improved the quality of care in the maternity ward, why are we still obsessing about electronic printouts from said monitors?
2) If I had gone to a public school in the seventies rather than a swank private school that didn’t HAVE short buses, and autism diagnosis had been as sophisticated then as it is today, I would have been on the “short bus,” myself, and shunted into the segregated “special ed” school. (My IQ has been tested at 145.) Enough of the “short bus” cracks, already. If a nurse had made a comment like that to me, she would have gotten quite an earful.
BTW, my brother in law Bob is both autistic and mildly intellectually disabled (he is the only member of my husband’s immediate family to have a formal diagnosis of autism, although if you meet the clan, it’s obvious they’re all pretty autistic – they all show limited eye contact, or stereotypy, or they harp about their intellectual obsessions and don’t listen to people trying to change the subject or extricate themselves, or they don’t talk at all – it’s fascinating to watch, really). Could we please not use terms like “moron?” at least in the context of preventable intellectual disability caused by birth trauma, or something equally clinical? I’m sorry to be a nit picker, but it hits a little close to home. My husband (IQ last measured at 185) was called “moron” and “retarded” and “stupid” by his peers and teachers, too. And he obviously didn’t deserve it. For that matter, Bob may not be the wisest or the fastest thinker you’ll ever meet, but he doesn’t seem to fit the label “moron.” No dueling banjos in the background when he talks. Really, you’d have to meet him.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 8:46 am (Quote)
P.S. Depending on the context, though, I’m pretty sure I would have called the nurse stupid to her face (or a rider on the “short bus”) if she’d said something like that to me. Maybe I am hypocritical. Sometimes, though, I just can’t resist temptation.
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I also worked as a teacher in Special Education and I hate the term “little bus” being linked to kids who have birth trauma/damage. They are not some sort of sub group, they are children like every other child.
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Brittany G. had this to say,
Jun 29, 2010 @ 12:02 pm (Quote)
To be clear, I wasn’t advocating continuous electronic monitoring or keeping mom flat on her back. Fetoscopes are much more accurate and continuous monitoring isn’t necessary in most cases. Decels happen in most labors for one reason or another and usually aren’t anything to be concerned with and continuous monitoring is responsible for some unnecessary section deliveries because people get scared of normal things.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 2:35 pm (Quote)
Let’s start a campaign to bring back the fetoscope.
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cheeks023 Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 2:50 pm (Quote)
I have a beef with fetoscopes. My midwife’s dopplar stopped working, and she brought out the fetoscope at my 39 week appointment. It was because of this incredibly sensitive piece of equipment that we discovered that my DD was breech. It was because of that one, insignificant little heart rate test, that I ended up having to give birth in a hospital!
Okay, so my beef isn’t necessarily with the fetoscope themselves!!! LOL It is definitely a much more sensitive, yet slightly more burdensome tool to use!
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 2:57 pm (Quote)
This is why I have a beef with midwifery training programmes that don’t cover the art of assisting at breech births…
It’s one thing to go to the hospital because one feels safer and more comfortable there upon finding out that the baby is, in fact, breech. It’s another to go to the hospital because the midwife, who is otherwise highly skilled, lacks the training (or comprehensive insurnce) to feel confident about assisting a breech birth at the client’s home.
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Nicole Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 8:46 pm (Quote)
It may not have to do with the midwife’s training or comfort, but rules that she is bound to follow. The midwives here are required to transfer if there is an undiagnosed breech.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 10:40 am (Quote)
I’ve heard that in some states, even direct-entry midwives have to follow rules like that or risk losing their license to practice. Maybe it’s almost a blessing that I live in a state where direct-entry midwifery is illegal. My CPM breaks the law every time she enters her client’s house to help out at a birthing. The position of the baby therefore is irrelevant, at least from a legal perspective.
Stupid restrictions…
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cheeks023 Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 6:12 am (Quote)
I would agree with you in general, but my midwife is highly skilled at breech birth. The guidelines she has to follow involved telling me that a breech birth would be more safely delivered in the hospital. The decision was mine entirely. I chose to go rather then put her in a compromising position. If I had decided to stay at home she would have stayed with me.
My point about the fetoscope was that if her dopplar had continued to work we would not have discovered her position until time of delivery. At that point it would have been to late to transfer!!!
Also, just to clarify, the reason she wasn’t palpated and discovered breech was because my placenta was in the front…making it difficult to get a feel for her position.
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“Short Bus”, eh? How would she know that changing to a certain position leads to one’s school transportation shrinking in length? One might suspect from this L&D nurse’s oblivious lack of common tact and diplomacy that she has intimate knowledge of this kind of bus.
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I’m sorry, but it suprises how everyone is onboard in a situation they don’t understand. It’s altogether possible that mom was being stubborn and the nurse had tried the polite route. I have seen some rude moms for sure. I also, wasn’t exactly a treat. So, maybe she was trying to get her point across but keep it light.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 7:59 pm (Quote)
The name of the site is “My OB Said WHAT?”
The site has a serious backlog of submitted comments. Many of them come with explanations that don’t get added to the original quote when it’s posted because there isn’t enough room.
There are plenty of mainstream fora where mothers post birth stories that include expressions of gratitude for their care providers, or for the safety of their child, or whatever.
This site does have Thoughtful Thursdays, when the really good care providers and facilitators of humane, healthy births are given honour and credit.
I have not been here for very long – only a few months – but in the frame of time that I have been visiting this site, I have only seen negative comments on the other days of the week. Thoughtless, stupid, tactless, bullying, rude, or otherwise highly unwelcome comments made by care providers, and after the original postings, plenty of well-deserved verbal rotten eggs thrown in the general direction of the provider who made the offensive comment.
I think it is safe to say that in such an atmosphere, under the general terms of engagement as demonstrated over the course of the past few months, medical professionals whose words have been quoted here are guilty until proven innocent. If you want to see more empathy, gratitude, charity, etc, look at the Thursday comments, or be prepared for a very long wait.
As to whether the nurse had good reason to advise the labouring mother to shift position, that may or may not have been true (the pink link hasn’t manifested yet). However, nothing excuses the “short bus” comment. At least not to those of us who believe in diversity awareness. If you are one of those people who thinks there’s nothing at all wrong with references to short buses, retarded people (or calling something “retarded” when you really mean “silly” or “a bad idea”), etc, then I have nothing further to say, at least nothing that doesn’t involve a whole lot of four letter words and flaming insults.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 8:09 pm (Quote)
PS. If you are a labour and delivery nurse or similar care provider, and standing up for the members of your profession because of “rude mothers” you’ve had to deal with, allow me to gleefully quote out of context something I’ve heard from care providers (and from some of the mothers in the trenches of the Mommy Wars who are busy defending their doctors’ interventions, and their subsequent craptastic births, by spitting fire at those of us who have the nerve to complain about our similarly bad birth experiences and demand better treatment):
It’s not about you.
Yep. That’s right. It’s about the mother – because generally, a happy mother makes for an easier birthing, which makes for a healthier baby and a much better maternal bond after the initial few minutes postpartum. In short, a much better outcome. The feelings of the care provider are secondary at best.
Motherhood is an irreversible life event, medicine a career. If the job bothers you, that means it’s time to train for a new career, one that is less frustrating and unsatisfying to you. Mothers do not have that option. Once a birth has happened, that’s it. We can’t trade in our babies for other models, or go back and redo our births. So if it’s more important to you that a mother has been rude to you than that the mother has certain needs in birth, go find something else to do.
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StaudtCJ Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 9:34 pm (Quote)
Well said, Sarah Dorrance-Minch. Your eloquence is moving.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 10:44 am (Quote)
Only when I write or lecture from an outline and notes. You should hear me when I try to make small talk. There’s this song by The Police called “De Doo Doo Doo De Da Da Da…”
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Rachel Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 9:56 pm (Quote)
Actually Sarah, birth is not soley about the mother, it’s about the child too. And I think you’re using the term “needs”, what I think you meant to say in that last sentence is that a mother has certain “preferences” during birth.
I’ve had 5 children, all labors were not medicated nor augmented, and trust me I’ve had a lot of different comments from OB’s, nurses, etc.. But I’m not going to put myself on a pedestal and flaunt around like a queen, while bashing and disrespecting medical professionals, because God forbid they said something that rubbed me the wrong way. They’re human, and most Ob’s deliver 20-30,000 babies average, so of course they’re not going to please everyone.
I’ve had 2 horrible births and 3 wonderful. I really do not care what type of “BIRTH EXPERIENCE” I had looking back. My only memories worthwhile are of the children themselves.
Most the comments submitted here are ridiculous. I’ve seen very few that were worth fussing over.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 2nd, 2010 at 12:01 pm (Quote)
I subscribe to the “if mama ain’t happy, nobody winds up happy” theory. In practice, that’s usually how it works out, whether that’s right or wrong. Miserable mothers who are angry and/or suffering from postpartum depression or PTSD from a bad birth experience generally wind up being less attached to their children. Whether this results in early weaning (which, I regret to report, does count for something in terms of health, it isn’t just a lifestyle or choice issue), neglect, abuse, or just a detached and unhappy mother who winds up sharing and enjoying less of her child’s early months or years, the end result of a sad mother is a less than ideal parental relationship.
If it’s true that “all that matters is a healthy baby,” and a mother’s “selfish” need for a good birth “experience” is the thing that needs to be condemned or at least scoffed at until the “selfish” mother learns to stop feeling sorry for herself and “just get over it, because it’s not about her,” then gee, it looks like this putting Mom in her place is a bad idea, since the child suffers at least as much as the mother in the long run.
This particular skirmish in the ongoing Mommy War is old and will probably never be settled, and if it didn’t directly impact the fight to make birth choices more available to all who want them and to make birth itself more humane and evidence-based, I wouldn’t get worked up over it.
Unfortunately, it does have an impact. For one thing, the people who say “All that matters is a healthy baby, that’s all the care provider should care about” are generally the ones who fight to have direct entry midwifery restricted, to have hospitals given the right to do whatever they think is “best” in the name of patient safety (a Columbus, OH obstetric practice recently banned doulas, had you heard about that?) and basically support the technologized, medicalized, emergency-until-proven-otherwise model of birth that is giving us a ludicrously high c-section rate. Among other undesirable things. Like miserable mothers, which might not be a big deal to you, but to me it is a crisis.
I am sure I do not speak for all readers or all posters here, but judging by some of the zingers I’ve read in reply to posts, I am not the only one who finds the vast majority of quotes here not merely ridiculous, but also highly offensive and sometimes dangerously stupid.
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Tiffany Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 11:47 pm (Quote)
First and foremost let me say, No, I am not one of those folks that thinks “short bus” is the most hilarious thing I have ever heard. I worked closely with a group of mentally retarded people whom I loved very much, and whom also had one heck of a sense of humor. They frequently used the R-word and the term “short bus” towards each other. They were fun and ridiculous. I am not nearly as offended by it, perhaps because of this experience.
Secondly, I am also not a care provider. I am a mother who had a great pregnancy, flawless really, only just about a year ago (my son will be one in just 16 days. Ahhh!) and I had a horrible birth experience.
With that in mind I met not one but many bratty little pregnant women on my floor. You’ll forgive me if their arrogance has made me a bit sour. I was stuck in a testing room for 4 days while other women boohoo-ed to be in their suites. I was practically forced to have a c-section and told what I could or couldn’t do while the woman next to me (in a suite mind you) cussed and walked the halls B**ching about not getting to go out for a smoke. She was taking a room I could have had on her third trip to the OB floor for what she insisted was labor. She was later sent home.
And so, I think that perhaps there are times when we pregnant ladies get ridiculous and some people feel the need to get us to do what we are told. I in no way support abuse of a patient nor the mistreatment of any woman regardless of her attitude, but I am willing to support a nurse who is being harassed when she might have been trying to genuinely help.
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cheeks023 Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 6:37 am (Quote)
It may be okay for groups of people to refer to each other in such ways but that doesn’t mean it is okay for others to do it. For example I have many Black friends who refer to each other jokingly as N-gg– all the time. That doesn’t mean it is okay for other people to use the term to reference them. The same rule applies all over.
We are not children…there is no need to “do what we are told”. Most of us are intelligent, functional, thinking individuals. Speaking to us as such often produces fabulous results. (There are exceptions of course)
But truly, a nurse would not likely walk into a cancer patients room and say “Unless, you want to join your parents in the ground, you’ll take these meds.” It would be UNHEARD of. Why, then, oh WHY are labouring Mother’s allowed to be spoken to in such a way? Why are we second class citizens in the hospital?
I’m sorry you were beside such a bratty patient. But there is never a reason to speak to people in such ways, it is just common sense and general rules of politeness. Like I said in a previous post above, if she really wanted to get through to this Mother to get her to change positions there are SO, SO many other ways of saying it. It doesn’t matter how frustrated the nurse is, or how many crappy patients she has already dealt with today, as a public worker, her job is to remain calm and in control of her emotions. If she needs a breather to regain that, fine. If she doesn’t have the ability to maintain or remain as such, she should look for a new line of work.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 11:01 am (Quote)
“It may be okay for groups of people to refer to each other in such ways but that doesn’t mean it is okay for others to do it. For example I have many Black friends who refer to each other jokingly as N-gg– all the time. That doesn’t mean it is okay for other people to use the term to reference them. The same rule applies all over.”
Yep. Heck, I’m autistic (and VERY socially impaired, it’s one of my more low-functioning areas, what ability I have now to pass for “normal” comes from being forty years old and learning things the hard way over and over again until they finally sank in). And even *I* know I do not have the right to use in-group sarcasm.
Maybe it is because I am autistic and therefore socially stupid, but if you were not actually a care provider for the supposedly “bratty” mothers on your floor (what, exactly, constitutes “brattiness,” by the way?) then why would their attitudes or behaviours mean anything to you one way or another? Unless they were ganging up on you and bullying you (which would be strange, how would they get the opportunity?) in which case you had every right to complain… about that. If they did not directly interact with you, then they may have been guilty of not having had as miserable an experience as you, perhaps, at least not from what you could observe. You can certainly be resentful of that. Resentment is hardly positive, but it’s underrated, I think. Spleen is a human birthright. We should all be allowed to enjoy a little spleen.
That still doesn’t change the fact that nothing excuses a medical professional’s rudeness or incompetence when dealing with patients. Rude, annoying patients are simply part of the job description. Teachers have to deal with hooligans, not just well-behaved students and academic stars. Members of the clergy have to deal with all sorts of, um, interesting types, at least if they’re the sort to get involved with their flocks. Customer service reps and sales reps have to deal with jerks, too. Any so-called “people profession” is going to involve contact with difficult people, and part of the job is maintaining grace under pressure.
Hell, that’s one reason I’m never going to be a midwife or a doula. I have no patienc, and I have a very sharp tongue. I’d probably get quoted on this board within weeks of acquiring my first client.
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cheeks023 Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 8:06 am (Quote)
>>So, maybe she was trying to get her point across but keep it light.<<
there is nothing light in joking about mental retardation.
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Tiffany Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 9:55 am (Quote)
Well, I am glad that there is nothing light in joking about being mentally retarded but your cool with it when your friends throw disgusting and horrible racial slurs at each other because they are black. Makes perfect sense…
For a minute, maybe the nurse police should calm down. Again, you have no idea the scope of the situation. I will stand and remain on my point; it is possible that the nurse was trying to get our “saintly” mother to do what was necessary to birth her child. As someone said before I am glad we had a nurse who was even suggesting it. At the rate of c-section in this country many places would have had her wheeling down the hallway to the OR.
PS. Most people do not have the ability to maintain composure at all times. And not all people have the same sense of humor. It is unfortunate that the mother was offended and also that she was not surrounded by people she knew and trusted. But, I must say, perhaps that should have been a consideration when making the hospital choice.
I have taken responisbility for my choice of hospital, for my lack of knowledge about c-section, for a poor doctor choice. I won’t excuse there behavior but I will say I could’ve found another place. I knew their reputation. There are a bazillion hospitals and not all of them cut the mustard, a sad result of our health care system. You gotta find the one and weed the rest out.
To the mother: I do not know your situation at all. I am sorry that you had a bad experience. You should know that there are wonderful care providers out there and that there are other choices for your next child, if you choose to have one. I would strongly recommend a doula or midwife. Each have different roles but in this case these care providers will get to know you closely and personally. The only way you’ll hear a “joke” or cross word out of their mouth is if they know you and know your style. They have a very intimate relationship with you and it could save you from any future crappy moments. Also know that many good nurses exist, but they can be hard to find. Do your leg work and find the right choice for you. Good luck in the future! 
)
Ona side note:
The use of slang or derogatory terms is NEVER okay. Between yourself and a friend, between two people of color, between homosexuals, between one plump person and another, etc. They are rude and disgusting and only fuel things like racism and hate. IF it isn’t okay for me to call someone something nasty it shouldn’t be oay for anyone else!! Don’t do it. It’s wrong.
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Tiffany Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 9:59 am (Quote)
Ooops! That was supposed to be a happy face. Oh, and by the way, many insurance companies will cover the cost of a midwife or doula including medicaid. They can be ahrd to find but they are out there and worth the work!!
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cheeks023 Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 10:37 am (Quote)
Tiffany you have to pick one. It either is or isn’t okay to use derogatory terms.
On the one hand you are condoning what the nurse did and said in order to “get the “saintly” mother to do what was necessary to birth her child.” You claim this doesn’t bother you much because you are used to hearing it. But in the next breath scoff because I hear a different derogatory term that you find HIGHLY offensive. You’ve been desensitized to one, me another…does that make either okay?
In the other breath you are saying that “The use of slang or derogatory terms is NEVER okay.”
It can’t be both. So which is it? Was or was she not wrong in what she said?
My point and I firmly stand by it, is that the use of common sense and tact, and just your basic politeness go an awful long way in life – especially when working with an emotional set of people, referring to someone’s baby as potentially mentally retarded is none of those things. I’m not saying one has to be composed at all times, that’s what break rooms are for. Take a breather and as my boss always said “paste a face” – fake it until you make it. If you find you are faking it more often then not; change careers.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 11:28 am (Quote)
What she said.
And besides, I apologize for repeating it (I hate being redundant) but I’ll say it again anyway: in the months I’ve been on this blog forum, all care providers quoted on days other than Thursday can be safely assumed guilty until proven innocent. This is not a court of law, it’s a barbeque pit. We roast care providers here. The very name of the forum implies what goes on here. It sounds like you had a terrible experience. Never mind trying to see things from the perspective of the people who were trying to care for you during your birthing experience; it’s okay not to empathize with them, at least here. If one of them said something that pissed you off or something asinine or illogical or bullying to get you to submit to what seemed like an unnecessary intervention, grab a toasting fork and some hot sauce and submit the comment, if you haven’t already.
Who knows, maybe it will make you feel better.
BTW, I wish your son a happy birthday.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 11:19 am (Quote)
“Well, I am glad that there is nothing light in joking about being mentally retarded but your cool with it when your friends throw disgusting and horrible racial slurs at each other because they are black. Makes perfect sense…”
Yes, it does. TO THEM. You don’t get to play by their rules. The roommate with cerebral palsy who I summered with got to call herself a “crip” in jest, but I could not. And when I was dating a woman, we could call each other and our queer female friends “dykes,” but heaven help you if you called us that and you were straight.
If you’re not part of the minority group, you do not get to play by its rules. The rules are different for you. Whether this is fair or logical, or not, is irrelevant. We get to make the rules. Outsiders don’t. If this makes us sound exclusionary, well, hey, we’re excluded socially from a lot of groups too, and maybe exclusion is just a normal human behaviour, whether it’s positive or negative. It’s better to pick battles you can actually win, unless you like futilty. We may be able to legislate and enforce civil rights, but I doubt we’ll ever get rid of basic cattiness. I for one see little point in trying. I prefer battles that I have at least a chance of winning.
And on the interesting tangent –
“Oh, and by the way, many insurance companies will cover the cost of a midwife or doula including medicaid. They can be ahrd to find but they are out there and worth the work!!”
This depends on where you live. Few states offer Medicaid reimbursement to direct entry midwives, and in many states, direct entry midwives are outlawed. CNMs are easier to find, and often reimbursable by Medicaid, but then the problem becomes one of access. Demand often exceeds supply, and most CNMs who are listed as Medicaid providers work in urban areas, which is hard for mothers who live in rural areas. (Rural mothers have a hard enough time finding any kind of care provider.) Whether doulas are covered by Medicaid varies from state to state, too. It may be a new development made possible by the new health care reforms. I can say that in my Medicaid provider booklet, there are no doulas listed, and there are almost no midwives. One hospital does offer in-house doula care, which used to be free on demand, but now costs a few hundred dollars extra (thought the doulas themselves are only reimbursed about $6 per hour). You don’t get to choose your doula ahead of time, and their scope is limited to what the hospital “recommends.”
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Tiffany Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 2:38 pm (Quote)
Well, yes, I suppose I wasn’t going into terrible detail but it can be difficult but is also worth the work. I so badly wish I had had someone. I live in a very rural area and I didn’t have great access however I also didn’t realize that only a few months ago medicaid approved doulas in New York state and from what I can gather in most states carrying medicaid. It is a very new development but an exciting one. I have to say I am thrilled to see what we now call alternative care slowly creeping it’s way back into the system.
As for the rest of it…
Blah. I guess we have to agree to disagree. I am not terribly offended by hearing the word retard or using when refering to people I have worked with and I suppose I am not terribly offended by other things, it’s just that I hate the double standard which could get me on a whole new topic that I am waaay too passionate about. So, lets skip it.
And yes, it probably would be nice to rant about what some of my really stupid, really ridiculous nurses said. Ahhhh! Like, here I am laying in a bed, no sleep in the last 36 hours and just coming down from the spinal and I say… I need to sleep. Please (to my mother) can you keep an eye on the baby for a few hours? This nasty nasty nurse had the audacity to tell me this is what being a mother is all about and she then went on to tell me how when she was a new mom she just wanted to go out drinking once in awhile but then one night her kid was sick and she had to stay home. So, I had better learn how to be a mom.
I was like WTF? I am recovering from a c-section and want a nap and that compares to you wanting to clubing how exactly????? Ugh! Okay, maybe it does feel good.
Crap…
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 6:32 pm (Quote)
Told you it would feel good to rant about the crappier care providers you dealt with (even under the best of circumstances, nursing is shift work, shifts change, and you’re bound to get at least one nurse who is rude or incompetent, just like you’re bound to get at least one who is worth his/her weight in gold.)
It’s okay to resent them. Really.
Come to the dark side. We have cookies, and we don’t share them with professionals except on one day of the week. And doesn’t every new mother need to be mothered with cookies?
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I rode the “short bus” and it wasn’t for special ed. I went to a school in a large city that you have to be tested (and score pretty high) to attend, and since there werent but maybe 7-8 students from my neighborhood attending we didn’t have use for the long, 70 passenger bus. So we rode the short bus. I cannot stand when people make references to it in demeaning way.
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Oh, threats! They’re part of the hospital’s “Best Practice” initiative, right?
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