Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jul
5
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…I Don’t Want To Have To Explain This To A Panel.”
“Your baby could be brain damaged or a stillbirth. I don’t want to have to explain this to a panel.” – OB to mother who did not want to be induced at 38 weeks.
There are 19 comments to this post.
“What part of informed decision-making will the panel not understand?”
So let’s see: the dead baby card. The damaged baby card. The EMPATHY ploy: “You could be hurting ME TOO!!” And the Authority Card (the nebulous Panel. A panel of what? Of whom? Which panel is convened when a baby dies?)
Survey says: X!
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What will “the Panel” say when my baby is induced and is 36 weeks not 38 weeks and ends up in the NICU?
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Toni Reply:
July 5th, 2010 at 5:07 pm (Quote)
Nothing, because that makes the hospital more money.
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Aria Reply:
July 7th, 2010 at 9:22 pm (Quote)
When a baby ends up in the NICU because of interventions, it’s always seen as “necessary.” That’s a code word for “something the doctor did to make more money that will now make even more money, but no court in the land will find the doctor liable because doctors can never do wrong.”
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch had this to say,
Jul 5, 2010 @ 5:09 pm (Quote)
Give me something to work with, Doc.
Do I have a bad case of pre-eclampsia? I’ll agree that if that is the case, induction or surgery would be the wisest course of action for both me and my baby. I may be stubborn, but I’m not stupid.
On the other hand, if this is about Fear Of A Big Baby (total non sequitur, first of all; secondly, at this point, extra weight is mostly baby fat, which will help the baby come out faster and more easily if you let me work with gravity instead of putting me on my back) I must decline.
If they taught you in med school that babies are ready once the age of gestation is thirty eight weeks, so it’s a good idea to induce just in case of something (what? what? a herd of rhinos rampaging through the hospital? a herd of IRS auditors doing the same? an egg timer going “ding!” signalling that my time is up?) then I think you are mistaken, and so is whoever taught you that course.
And if this is about your scheduling convenience, you don’t get lucky.
Tell that to the committee. I wouldn’t mind telling them myself, in practice, at least, if it weren’t a massive inconvenience, but it isn’t my problem. It’s yours. Wear your big kid pants.
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UGH! That’s like my rotten OB going on and on about shoulder dystocia because I wouldn’t let her induce at 38 weeks (when I’d told her at 20 weeks that induction would NOT be an option and not to even bring it up and she’d agreed!!) and of course, how the shoulder dystocia would kill my baby (and she was FURIOUS when I said that I wasn’t worried, that the risks for that did not really go up with size and were lower than cesarean after induction and that I could just change position and baby would come out).
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Meghan Reply:
July 6th, 2010 at 4:11 am (Quote)
Heather – What did the OB end up doing? I’m curious as to how your birth went if you don’t mind telling, (as in did the OB make things more difficult than necessary for you?)
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Heather Reply:
July 6th, 2010 at 8:56 am (Quote)
I wrote quite a bit on it on my own submission: http://myobsaidwhat.com/2010/06/01/someone-like-her-is-basically-guaranteed-to-have-a-cesarean-section/
My OB was out of town but she harassed me until I agreed to schedule an induction at 42 weeks and 1 day (partly because EVERYONE was harassing me it felt like, except my great natural birth support people and dh, I was a first time mom and I wanted to see my baby so badly). I went into spontaneous labor at 41 weeks, 6 days, labored for 22 1/2 hours, where an hour and a half was spent pushing (mostly in the squatting position) at 10 while baby didn’t descend because I didn’t know what the “urge” was supposed to feel like and the nurses were pestering me. Went into transition and while I couldn’t communicate beyond saying I couldn’t push (I was also exhausted), they sent me off to the OR for ‘CPD’ (or, if you listened to the nurse who shouted “you’re not even trying!” at me while I purple pushed after repeatedly trying to refuse to birth that way…).
My second was a VBAC after 23 1/2 hours of labor (also spontaneous), pretty much confirming my suspicions that my cesarean was unnecessary. She popped out in just 20 minutes when I only pushed for the first 10 minutes, then a little bit after and while I was just resting, she shot out with one last contraction into my hands.
Both my babies were 8lbs, 7oz, 14 1/2″ heads.
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JulietsButterfly Reply:
July 6th, 2010 at 5:55 am (Quote)
Curious too. I have another friend named Heather who had some issues with shoulder dystocia with her 9lber who magically managed to come out the good ol’ way in spite of that! He was a bit bumped and bruised, but the really fast labor hadn’t helped with that.
My OB said the earliest he’d induce was after 38 weeks. We only brought it up because when I was GBS+ with my first baby, labor ended up being really fast and we didn’t have time to complete the antibiotics, which did more harm to me than good in the long run. We agreed that induction was the best way to be sure I got all the antibiotics in, should I need them (didn’t though-found probiotics instead).
Pre-e is all that comes to mind with this one, but it doesn’t sound like an emergency.
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Heather Reply:
July 6th, 2010 at 9:03 am (Quote)
You can read my reply to Meghan to satisfy that curiosity 
My aunt suffered from shoulder dystocia coming out. They had my grandma pushing and pushing and then her husband walked into the room, she sat up and my aunt popped out with a dislocated shoulder. Poor baby, yeah, but she was hardly ‘dead’ and if my grandma hadn’t been pushing on her back, it probably never would have happened in the first place 
I have two friends who have had less than 3 hour labors. One does homebirths with a midwife and the other unassisted homebirths.
I had antibiotics in both my labors (with my second, I did a hibiclens regimen before the test for over two weeks, but I’m apparently just permanently colonized). Both my babies had yeast infections from them. But I had long labors, so I got way more than was needed, too. I think I’d rather test for GBS disease after birth next time instead of spending hours hooked up to that crap (since they tested my second ANYWAY and wouldn’t release her until they did, despite me getting three rounds of antibiotics, so even the doctors don’t believe it works!).
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JulietsButterfly Reply:
July 6th, 2010 at 6:46 pm (Quote)
Actually, since my OB broke my water at 10cm with my first, looking back, I probably never needed the stupid antibiotics with that birth. It would follow that if a mom can get to 10 with waters intact that maybe there’s not as much of a risk of infection assuming the baby is pushed out without much trouble (as DD was). Even with my induction, they never broke my water. Between 8-10 they noticed it had broken, but that was maybe 30-45 mins before DS was born. My OB didn’t bother checking to see if it had broken until I was at 10 and ready to push and then we just shrugged our shoulders and let it go.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 6th, 2010 at 1:58 pm (Quote)
Strange how shoulder dystocia is almost (though not completely) unheard of when you’re dealing with a mother who has been given the freedom to roam around and wriggle in labour, birth in a sensible position (often on all fours or in a semi-squat that is best described as a “dog peeing on fire hydrant” pose) and who has had the benefit of an experienced midwife with good, skilled hands.
Shoulder dystocia is more common (and a scarier emergency, usually) in the hospital, where the usual method of dealing with the mother whose baby is wedged that way is to hyperflex her legs behind her ears and cut a massive episiotomy.
Not that it isn’t a problem worth taking seriously, but letting the mother roam free in labour seems to prevent a lot of shoulder dystocia from happening. What’s that they say about an ounce of prevention?
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This sounds remarkably like my OB, who, when asked about risks of induction, talked a lot about a dead baby and cerebral palsy, but failed to actually tell me that I had about the highest Bishop’s score you can get and probably would have had a failed induction and therefore c-section. I hope the OP had happy ending to the story.
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Another one of mine! The OB had told me at 36 weeks that the baby was measuring small and that she would check him again in 2 weeks. She merely said, “eat more!”. I thought nothing of it, except that I small baby might mean an easier and faster natural delivery At 38 weeks she said, “baby has shown enough growth so let’s get him out now. Like tonight. Oh and I’m leaving town tomorrow.” When I protested, that when she threw out the dead baby card. I convinced her to wait one day so I could get an acupunture induction. I was on the fence, but succumbed to the induction because I was so afraid at that point. Hindsight is 20/20 isn’t it? What happened is the following post where my OB wanted to get the baby out so she could make it to her hair appointment. Oh how I wish I could go back and make a different decision!
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Add Your Comment.
‘…and I have a family vacation to Cancun planned in two weeks, and I want to be able to bill you for the Cesarean.’
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