Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jul
27
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Don’t Touch Anything Blue, That’s *MY* Space!”
“Don’t touch anything blue, that’s *MY* space!” -OB to mother when asking her not to touch sterile drapes arranged around her abdomen, legs, and other body parts.
There are 47 comments to this post.
I would imagine this is a vaginal birth, since they strap your arms down during a c-section. I think it’s funny that this OB is so uptight about “his sterile space” since hospitals are notoriously unsterile. He probably contaminated his own space more than the mom would have.
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Becky Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 3:16 pm (Quote)
Having had two c-sections in different states, I can tell you they do NOT strap your arms down, especially if you ask them not to. Surgical births are scary enough, without adding restraints to the mix.
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Leigh Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 3:26 pm (Quote)
I have seen them strap arms down. Allegedly to “remind” moms not to touch the sterile field. And some doctors/hospitals are more accommodating than others about exceptions to their usual ways.
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Sherrie Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 3:31 pm (Quote)
I’ve had 2 c-sections and they strapped my arms down for both (first one done under a spinal, second one knocked out and the last thing I remember was them strapping my arms to the side boards). And yes, it is extremely terrifing to be numb, sick, scared for your baby and tied to table with no way to do anything but hope it’s over soon.
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Amy Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 3:39 pm (Quote)
My arms were strapped down for my c-section, even though I asked that they not be.
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Tracy Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 4:40 pm (Quote)
I have never witnessed a c-section where the mom WASN’T strapped down.
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Julie Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 5:21 pm (Quote)
I’ve had two c-sections and my arms weren’t strapped down either time.
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Heather Reply:
August 24th, 2010 at 11:20 am (Quote)
I’ve had two c/s and my arms were strapped for the first one (until my nose started itching, and they released my left so I could scratch), and was unstrapped for the second. Not like I moved much. My bp kept dropping and I kept getting really nauseated. I wanted a VBAC, but the hospital where I had to have my second literally forbids them. Maybe next time.
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hallie Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 4:45 pm (Quote)
I wasn’t strapped down for my c-section either. My SIL wasn’t strapped for her first 13 years ago, but was for the rest (different doctors). I’m thinking it’s a doc’s preference and the situation??
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 11:41 am (Quote)
Like most women, when I had my c-section done to me I got ritually crucified. Fortunately, I was not in an upright position, or I would have had an asthma attack within two minutes. I was comfortably on my back. Well, as comfortable as it’s possible to get when one is requesting general anaesthesia because the epidural left a huge “window” on the right side and made the scalpel test on my skin feel a mite painful.
I do not remember whether or not I was draped or my hands held back when I was in the maternity ward for the VBAC a year and a half later. I know that I was struggling against the nurses who were holding my legs, pretending to be stirrups.
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Gotta love them trying to keep things “sterile” in an environment where everyone has been in and out for hours in street clothes. And a woman’s body is fairly used to her bacteria, so just wash your hands like you are supposed to, doc. All I can see those blue drapes doing (other than continuing tradition) is a faulty attempt to maintain a mother’s “modesty” and a fairly successful attempt at keeping birth “medical” and marking the doc’s territory.
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Dogs pee on fence posts to accomplish the same thing.
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Cmat Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 4:40 pm (Quote)
Okay, that almost made me spit out my ginger ale.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 11:37 am (Quote)
Not sterile enough. Besides, in the hospital, it’s the mother’s pee that gets measured, monitoried and otherwise obsessed over.
Have to use a substitute.
Let’s make a tent out of the mother’s body. Yeah. Sounds good. Just don’t let her have any s’mores, that’s bad for her. We’ll hide them at the nurses’ station with the coffee, donuts, and pizza.
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Those might be your drapes, but that’s my body you’re draping them around. Ever heard of personal space? Yep, you’re invading mine.
I realize that maybe she did need to not touch a certain area, but I think it could have been said differntly. Maybe “We need to keep this area as sterile as possible. In order to do that, I need for you to not touch it.” Still does the trick.
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Well if you breach the sterile field during a c-section, which I assume this is, then you run the risk of infection. My arms weren’t strapped down and my dr also told me not to touch the blue drapes. I don’t get what the big deal is.
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Jane Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 5:29 pm (Quote)
Because “Don’t touch that! That’s my space!” sounds like something you’d say to a five year old *or* something five year olds say to each other. Not something a medical professional should be saying to his client about her body.
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Cmat Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 7:14 pm (Quote)
It isn’t what was said, its how it was said. It is perfectly fine to express to her to not breach the sterile fielf, but they don’t need to act like they’re speaking to a kindergartener. The situation might rub anyone the wrong way and that can’t always be avoided, but sometimes you do have to choose your words wisely.
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The Deranged Housewife had this to say,
Jul 27, 2010 @ 6:45 pm (Quote)
Well, if that’s the case, how do you explain the number of women who *don’t* touch the blue curtain and still wind up with an infection? A hospital-acquired one, to boot? Hmm….
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And once again it is a case of “It’s not what you say, it’s HOW you say it.”
Tact, man, Tact. It is not a difficult concept, it is not a lost and dying art, it is simply good manners.
*palm to head*
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Robyn Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 6:37 am (Quote)
No, *what* he said was unacceptable. For anyone to claim that any place on a woman’s body is *their* space without the woman’s permission (kind of like spouses will claim each other) is disturbingly controlling.
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cheeks023 Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 6:57 am (Quote)
sorry, misunderstanding. That saying isn’t meant to mean that you keep the same words and change the tone of your voice. (Like the old drama club game “Say Cucumber with different emotions”)
What it means is that if you have something to say, there are a myriad of ways to get you point across. It’s not the point you are making that is necessarily rude, it’s the words and the manner in which you say it.
Not that I necessarily understand this one regardless, it sounds like it was a vaginal birth, and yet I can’t reconcile that with having a sterile drape…not in this century anyways.
But lets say it were a C/S, he could just have easily said “Everything behind this blue drape needs to remain sterile to ensure the best possible protection for you and your baby. For that reason I am going to ask you not to touch anything from the blue drape forwards. Are you ready to meet your baby? Lets begin then!!”
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 11:34 am (Quote)
Well, that, and “sterile drapes” are utterly pointless from a birthing perspective, anyway. No woman needs to be turned into a piece of dust-protected spare furniture to birth a baby safely.
The drapes serve a purely ceremonial purpose: to distance the mother from her body and her own baby, and to distance the hospital personnel from her inherent womanliness and the sexuality of birth. By defusing the earthy nature of birth, they thus render it safe for the institution (namely, the hospital, which stands as the initiator into society as a whole) and take charge of the situation. This delivers the message (pun intentional) that the birth and the baby do not belong to the mother, but to society, and that the mother’s role is to be passive and accept whatever she is told to do to keep her relationship with her child and with society as a whole “sterile” and “healthy.” No messy chaos allowed.
For more information, read _Birth As An American Rite of Passage_ by Robbie Davis-Floyd.
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I’ve seen docs be touchy about the blue cloth on the abdomen b/c it is a sterile spot for them to be able to massage the uterus while doing 3rd stage (placenta removal) management and postpartum repair. It is important for the docs to be able to massage but also maintain sterile field b/c they may be going back into the birth canal. As a doula, that is one I usually try to explain nicely b/c I’ve rarely seen a doc do so – they are thinking about postpartum monitoring while the new mom is reeling from having just given birth. Sounds like the sterile field was a quite excessive in this case tho’.
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Susan Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 10:39 pm (Quote)
They use those during normal, vaginal birth & not just for C-sections? Seems rather restricting for the woman – more so than just being on her back. I know from experience that I hate birthing on my back. I found being on all 4s to be much better. The time that I was on my back I didn’t have a sterile sheet put on me, thankfully. I was upset enough at having an assisted delivery and them telling me at that point that I couldn’t have delayed cord clamping.
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Larissa Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 9:23 am (Quote)
Yes, they use it for normal vaginal birth as well. It is part of making sure that the uterus is contracting normally as well as part of managing the separation of the placenta. I know it is preferred in the natural birth world to let the placenta separate on its own but research has actually shown better outcomes for women with active management of that part of labor. And if it has been a long labor or an induction, sometimes external massage while examining is helpful to get the uterus to contract.
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Susan Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 9:45 am (Quote)
Do you have some links? I’d like to read them. 
From what I’ve researched when I was deciding on a physiologic 3rd stage, if a woman does immediate skin-to-skin contact and breastfeed immediately, then it doesn’t seem to be a problem. That also allows for delayed cord clamping, which is beneficial for the baby. But I’m always looking for other sources so I can make sure I’m fully informed.
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Katie Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 11:44 am (Quote)
Susan- you can still do delayed cord clamping with active management. It’s not a mandatory part, just a common one.
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Larissa Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 12:55 pm (Quote)
Susan – briefly, here is an abstract from a systematic review of the Cochrane database.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10908457
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Susan Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 10:28 pm (Quote)
Thank you. I noticed they mentioned nipple stimulation with the physiologic 3rd stage, but didn’t mention doing immediate skin-to-skin contact and breastfeeding, which would increase the mother’s oxytocin levels and assist in delivery of the placenta. They also didn’t mention anything about delayed cord clamping (Yes, Katie, I know you can do delayed cord clamping with active management, but from what I’ve heard and seen, they don’t like to do that). In my opinion (and I realise it is just my opinion), it seems that if the woman is going to delayed cord clamping, immediate skin-to-skin contact and immediate breastfeeding, then a physiologic 3rd stage doesn’t present a problem. Of course, if the woman begins bleeding more heavily than they’d like, they can give the injection at that time.
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Susan Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 11:02 pm (Quote)
I did see that they say active management usually includes early cord clamping, but I didn’t see if they looked at the outcomes of active & physiologic 3rd stage with both early & delayed cord clamping. There’s also some evidence to suggest the drugs used for active management of the third stage may interfere with breastfeeding. http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:qX7cFJJfabcJ:www.nctpregnancyandbabycare.com/_files/documents/7afdf959f533e254e901fe3c3b33bb32/1NCTPositionDrugsinThirdStageofLabourandtheeffectsonBreastfeedingrates.pdf+active+third+stage+interfere+breastfeeding&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESi0s7xorHYrm5h4dnAhnxHWBHuLAjBdhZyWJxgsoVePSyto7Y5768i74nq3YDVonICyYcQMx2c7PWedzw3aR9LsiQvHrFcm-4l2-B7MUnZ9hU361OW4UOhwbJoMHrBTFC6m1t2K&sig=AHIEtbR7uiqlaHlEOXcX9HFmaQlX5f5UcA
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Katie Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 11:42 am (Quote)
Larissa- I understand what you’re saying, but active management of the third stage actually still has the placenta separating on its own. Fundal massage should not be happening until the placenta is out; irritating the uterus before the placenta has separated is an awesome way to cause hemorrhage by way of partial separation.
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Larissa Reply:
July 28th, 2010 at 12:54 pm (Quote)
I agree re: fundal massage begin post-separation. But a sterile field is still needed for providers to be able to massage while doing repair and in cases when parts of the placenta are retained.
I just want to be clear, I’m not defending the rude way the doc acted toward the OP on this entry – just explaining how I’ve seen sterile fields used in reasonable ways at births before.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch had this to say,
Jul 28, 2010 @ 11:28 am (Quote)
Here’s your pile of “sterile drapes.” I agree, they are yours. I certainly don’t need or want them. That’s your space.
You are now the proud deliverer of a pile of institutional blue linen.
Meanwhile, I’m reclaiming MY space, namely, my own body, and the baby I am now about to catch with my bare hands. I do not give you the right to touch my space any more, or to intervene with it in any way.
(It looks like I’m not the first person to think of this, either. Good.)
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*rips away drapes* You can have your space over there. I’ll have my baby over here.
Of course, if it was a c/s then I guess you *might* need the doc. But he doesn’t need the drapes. I would want to see what they’re doing to me, they can maintain their sterile field without borders.
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I hope the original poster shares her backstory. I too, am wondering whether this was a c-section or vaginal birth. C-section – ok, sterile field makes sense but doctor’s words are WAY out of line; vaginal birth – the whole things a bunch of hooey.
I’m curious because as a doula, I was recently at a birth where a family doctor, who was really wonderful and practiced much like a midwife, used sterile drapes. I was really surprised by this. She didn’t obsess over it though, and when at one point, the mother reached down between the drapes, all the doctor did was look at me, shrug, and say, “Oh well. So much for a sterile field.” I wish I would have asked her why she felt a sterile field was needed, but since she was being so awesome in every other way, I left it alone. For future clients in her practice, I’ll just suggest ahead of time that they ask about sterile drapes.
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Anyone got more backstory? I can see the reason for this comment if it was in an ER during a c-section (I surely don’t want germs in my open stomach) but if it was a vaginal birth what the heck are the drapes for?!
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Bonita Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 3:09 pm Bonita(Quote)
I’d like some backstory too. But even with a backstory that is a horrible comment to make. I would have told the dr. “Ummm… excuse me? YOUR space?! MY body!”
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