Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Aug
31
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…They Are All Soft And Mushy In There…”
“Oh God, this is why I hate doing internals on pregnant women, they are all soft & mushy in there & i can’t find the cervix.” -OB during a pelvic exam on a woman 30 weeks pregnant with her 5th child.
There are 37 comments to this post.
Umm Abdullah had this to say,
Aug 31, 2010 @ 10:01 am (Quote)
Well, then , DON’T DO THEM!
And in the meantime, learn some manners! Wow, if that was me, I would feel like crap.
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Lindsey Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 10:23 am (Quote)
Exactly. Isn’t 30 weeks early for internals, anyway?
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CCindy Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 10:47 am (Quote)
Why would you feel like crap? I would be angry! I mean WTH. The fact that he is thinking that way means he needs to get out of OB. The fact that he said it is just amazingly rude and unprofessional! Was that a cry for help? Seriously, DOC, do you need to be slapped back to reality? If you think it is gross, can’t find the cervix and are doing internals way earlier than needed, maybe it is time to drop the OB and just do Gyn. How do you feel about pills and paps? Does cancer gross you out too? How much time and effort did you put into picking your profession? Did you parents push you into medicine? GPA not good enough to be a brain surgeon? What seriously what is your problem? Doesn’t the hospital have somebody you should be talking to about this?
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Instead of saying “gross!” the OB would do well to learn more about the cervix. Just stumbled across this project myself, thought I’d share.
http://www.beautifulcervix.com/
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DOES this person realize they can be a GYN without being an OB? Although, to be honest, if this is what they are willing to say out loud to patients, maybe they should just find a nice lab somewhere with no people, only test tubes and slides, and put the rest of us out of his misery.
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And once again, we find a medical professional blaming (shaming?) the patient for his (or her) own ineptitude. If it’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools, then it’s an even poorer doctor who blames his patients.
My other thought is more sinister: that he’s doing the pelvic exam for non-medical reasons and he wants to shame the woman sufficiently that she keeps it to herself what he did and doesn’t tell anyone, that way he won’t get reprimanded. But that’s diabolic and I hope the OP wasn’t being molested.
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Jane Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 3:04 pm (Quote)
Thinking further, I could find my own cervix during pregnancy, even with a posterior baby, and it wasn’t mushier or grosser than usual in there.
I hope the OP comes here and explains why she was getting an internal, because the most logical conclusion to leap to is that the doctor was inappropriately touching her, taking a long time about it because he was enjoying it, and blaming the mom so she would be too humiliated to admit it to anyone.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch had this to say,
Aug 31, 2010 @ 12:53 pm (Quote)
Such a relief, then, that internal exams are not a very necessary aspect of prenatal care in the first place. If I’m pregnant, I know I’ll eventually give birth, and labour will announce itself more often than not. No cervical check for dilation required.
Hey, Doc. If you need a map to find my cervix, stay far enough south (or north, I don’t care) that you’re not only removed from my equator, but you’re not even venturing into my tropical regions. Seriously. Some things should not need a map or a GPS to be found.
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CCindy Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 1:26 pm (Quote)
Hi Sarah, How did it go?
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 2:00 pm (Quote)
Awesome! 
Thirty hours of active labour, as opposed to my usual two hours. I took two baths, had sex, read Robin McKinley novels, ate avoglemono soup and lobster ravioli and cheesecake and frozen fruit, posted my labour progress in Facebook updates in between playing Farm Town and arguing politics with tea partiers on the fan site of the Federalist Papers (the intelligent tea partiers post and hang out there, and the emphasis, refreshingly, is on debate and discourse rather than melodrama and screeching – as you may surmise, I’m not in the tea party movement, but I like reading different political perspectives, so long as they are argued rationally), and eventually, gave birth to a 10 lb 5 oz baby girl while squatting over the toilet.
Didn’t want to move, once I was finally convinced that the baby was a LOT closer to coming out than I thought she was, and I’d have an easier time in an upright position than draped over my eldest daughter’s Rody horse. The midwife and her assistant had to drag me into a half standing position. I pushed for maybe thirty seconds, which is long for me (anything longer than a bungee jump is long for me, when it comes to pushing). Nuchal cord and hand, maybe that was why my midwife kept saying, “Slow down! SLOW DOWN!” But again, for me, that was slow. I didn’t see what all the fuss was about.
No tearing this time.
Oh, the placenta weighed almost as much as Catharine, and was very thick, which made butchering and cooking it a bit problematic – it didn’t sautee like calves’ liver. I saved most of it in the freezer, though, to experiment with. Will probably be using the saved blood in czernina pretty soon.
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Jane Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 2:59 pm (Quote)
I’m so glad you’re back, and congrats on your baby girl.
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Heather P Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 3:55 pm (Quote)
Congrats Sarah! Welcome back. 
Hope you’re enjoying the babymoon.
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Kit Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 4:50 pm (Quote)
Congrats!
Welcome back and best wishes to you and your now slightly larger family. It sounds like it was a wonderful experience for all. (and the image of you on your daughter’s rocking horse will probably give me warm fuzzy giggles for days.)
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Cmat Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 5:17 pm (Quote)
Congratulations Sarah! We missed your additions to the posts! Glad things went well
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 6:44 pm (Quote)
Enjoying the new baby, but I didn’t get a babymoon. My husband was hit by an SUV while commuting to work on his bicycle, shattered his leg and fractured his pelvis, spent a week in the hospital, and is currently on modified bed rest.
I haven’t been on here because until recently I’ve been a nervous wreck, and too exhausted to come up with bon mots.
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Alyson Miers Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 6:48 pm (Quote)
Yikes. Life giveth and life taketh away.
I hope your husband makes a full, prompt recovery, and I’m very glad to hear you had a good birth with your new daughter!
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Cmat Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 7:05 pm (Quote)
Goodness! I hope he heals fully and quickly! Hopefully after he heals you guys can relax!
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 8:17 pm (Quote)
Relax? Hopefully we’ll be up to a little more than just relaxation after he heals (which will be much later than when my lochia stops – I suppose I had that coming to me, karmically speaking. Alas) 
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Sheesh. What a !@##$%.
Doc, you’re in the wrong business. By now you should be able to find cervixes, even mushy, pregnant, posterior, etc. ones.
So if you can’t, that’s your fault. Not the pregnant woman’s.
And, I agree – information gleaned from an internal at this point is at best useless, and at worst, going to be used not in the mother’s favor.
OP, what happened after this comment?
Can you still file a complaint? Because that is all kinds of rude.
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“Oh god this is why I hate having no choice but to have you as a doctor, you are always ignorant and rude and I can’t find a reason for not kicking you”
Sorry pal, but if your hand is in me for some so called “routine procedure” and you talk to me like that, your getting a black eye!
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Honestly, this one just made me lol. It doesn’t say he thinks its gross, just difficult. I guess I’m just hearing it with a different tone of voice.
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CCindy Reply:
September 1st, 2010 at 5:26 am (Quote)
It says he hates it and it also says soft and mushy. Now some things can be soft and mushy and fun (brownies, boobies) but he clearly said he hates it. No he didn’t use the word gross (at least not in the quote.) But the same meaning was implied. I can see where it would be funny – in that three stooges style movie. But considering that it really happened to someone, it is disgusting!
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Add Your Comment.
What a jerk! How dare he!
Why doesn’t he just say, “I hate women! I hate women’s bodies! I hate pregnancy! Gross, Ewwww, Yuck, Cooties!”
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Melissa Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 9:55 am Melissa(Quote)
And seriously, you can’t find the cervix on a pregnant woman? Why the heck are you an OB?
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Kether Reply:
August 31st, 2010 at 11:28 am Kether(Quote)
I’ve also had an MD have trouble finding my cervix because I was very posterior (depends on baby’s position).
However, I agree he was a jerky, jerky pants! Very insulting, poor mom!
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