Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jun
21
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“OK, I’m Only Going To Give You One More Push!”
“Okay, I’m only going to give you one more push!” – OB to mother who had been pushing for 8 minutes.
There are 37 comments to this post.
The more I read here, the more I feel like I need to guard my sister like a rabid dog guarding a bone during her upcoming birth…
[Reply]
C.Pratt Reply:
June 21st, 2011 at 3:33 pm (Quote)
Be careful about that. I felt similarly when a good friend asked me to be at her birth. When I pointed out how she was lied to she took it as an insult to her, I guess because she trusted her provider. Never mind she was told it was good they induced her at 37 weeks because the baby “would have died within 3 days” because of the amniotic fluid in her lungs. The baby had breathing difficulties that put her in NICU for a week and my friend thinks the docs saved instead of harmed her, and that I was judging her. I wasn’t, but I might be now… Anyhow, just be careful.
[Reply]
Charity Reply:
June 22nd, 2011 at 4:51 am (Quote)
Do what? Induction for amniotic fluid in the baby’s lungs? I’m reading that right? How the eff is that in indication for induction? All babies practice breathing… Right? What else are they supposed to breathe? Does everyone have an oxygen tube pumping air in there or something? Geez! Think logically, people!
[Reply]
Debra Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 12:55 am (Quote)
It drives me nuts when my friends and family put so much blind trust in their doctors. I’ve had to bite my tongue so many times after the fact. But when it’s before the fact – when there’s time to possibly change the outcome – I’m willing to risk my friendship with someone if it could save them from unnecessary surgery or premature baby.
[Reply]
This is something you say to a 5 year old on the swing set. Anyway, how exactly does any care provider “give” pushes to the mother? The visuals I’m getting from that thought are…troubling…
And EIGHT MINUTES! Holy hold-yer-horses, Batman! Let’s just take a deep breath and sing the “Have Patience” song while mama does her thing, OK?
[Reply]
Why don’t you stop pushing me and let me have this baby, you bully? I’ve only been at it for eight minutes!
Seriously, that’s ridiculous. I thought my pushing phase was super fast at 20 minutes (after my hour and a half one the birth before).
[Reply]
Now this comment would make sense if the baby’s heart rate was dropping into the 40′s or something. But I’m guessing that’s not the case.
I wonder if the doctor is saying that it’s only one more push until c-section or one more push until epi/forceps. Either way it’s not good!
I have a friend who had a c-section when baby’s head was crowning! 
[Reply]
Hi. This is my submission. 
I would like to say that overall my OB wasn’t that bad. I chose her because she was the most natural childbirth friendly in town; we were living in San Angelo, TX at the time and we didn’t have a lot of options. I switched *to* her because the nurse midwife I had chosen had asked me after I told her I wanted no interventions, “I don’t know what your problem with pitocin is…”
Pretty much at every OB appointment she asked me how I wanted the birth to go and I was surprised by this because I simply told her “I want no interventions whatsoever” every time. Seems not that hard to remember to me!
Still, she called the hospital after I’d been there for a few hours and asked to break my water. Also, I think the nurse stripped my membranes without my permission (I have no idea if the doctor ordered this or not). Anyway, my labor was short and uneventful. 17 hours total, 6 in the hospital, no medications, no interventions (besides the possible stripping of membranes I mentioned). My pushing phase was INSANELY short — like 10 minutes — especially since it was my first baby. When she said these words to me, my husband had *already seen the baby’s hair*, so I think back on it and think, “One more push or what?”
I think part of what happened is that the doctor / staff was SO unfamiliar with how to handle natural childbirth that they treated me as though I had been medicated and felt they had to direct my pushing as though I couldn’t feel anything. But seriously — one more push or what?
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
June 22nd, 2011 at 2:45 am (Quote)
I’m sorry. They did that to me too, screaming to push when I’d pushed the baby almost out on two contractions and he was born on the third. It’s like they really don’t think babies emerge at all unless someone is screaming in the mother’s face.
Hard pushing like that will case awful tearing. I’m sorry they did htat to you.
Is it possible the OB was saying “I’ll give you one more push until this baby comes out”? ie, “You’re about to be done,” not “I’m just about done with being here”? Just grasping at straws.
**hugs**
[Reply]
kristen Reply:
June 22nd, 2011 at 2:58 am (Quote)
You’re so kind to post this. (((Jane))) Unfortunately, I do think it was meant as I took it, as there was a lot of “You have GOT to push. PUSH. I am only giving you one more push!” Again, I think it was because almost every mother who delivers there uses an epi; in my birth class (not natural childbirth class, there wasn’t one in town) no one was even considering doing it without one but me and all of my nurses acted like I had climbed Mt. Everest by giving birth medication free. :/
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
June 22nd, 2011 at 4:20 am (Quote)
You’re right. I don’t get it.
Here’s a question, and not to you so much as to the great big world: L&D nurses feel the need to scream in the faces of laboring women to “PUSH PUSH PUSH!!!!” because with an epidural on, the moms don’t feel an urge to push. I think this is pretty much accepted even though some women do feel an urge to push with an epidural.
And they further justify it by saying the mom “won’t” push because she’s got the epidural, or “won’t know how” to push.
Is there ANY other skill in life that can be taught by screaming at the person? Seriously, wouldn’t these same L&D nurses call the authorities to have my children removed if I was standing over my seven year old screaming READ READ READ!!!
Or if I put my seventeen year old in the car and screamed “DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE!”
Or tossed a kid in the pool and shouted, “SWIM NOW! YOU HAVE TO SWIM NOW!”
And then, when the city’s finest come with the handcuffs and the sleeveless white jacket that fastens in the back, I could say, “But he didn’t have the urge to read,” or “But she didn’t know how to drive.”
It’s ridiculous in those situations, and obviously so. Therefore why does our hospital culture still tolerate verbal abuse of pushing moms?
[Reply]
kristen Reply:
June 22nd, 2011 at 4:26 am (Quote)
Such a good point. I’d never thought about it quite like that. In terms of what moms can do, I think that part of the issue is that many moms have birth amnesia and forget not just the pain and such but also how they were treated during birth, so people don’t stand up as much as they should. I recently read a woman saying that she broke tons of capillaries in her face because she didn’t know how to push during childbirth (she had an epi) and was pushing WITH HER FACE.
An obvious solution would be to tell women the *real risks* of having epis and actually *inform people of the risks of whatever procedure they are having*. A novel idea, I know. But in my childbirth class — and my doula was one of the teachers and she is AMAZING — they basically said there are almost no risks with having an epi. Um. Okay. Not saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to get them, but isn’t it the healthcare professional’s responsibility to at least tell them the possible risks? Then again, they’d actually have to KNOW what those are, and that seems are enough. Sorry. I will stop. I just get really angry!
[Reply]
xanthina Reply:
June 22nd, 2011 at 12:07 pm (Quote)
“It’s ridiculous in those situations, and obviously so. Therefore why does our hospital culture still tolerate verbal abuse of pushing moms?”
You know what… I think I’m going to steal that phrase. I grew up in a verbally abusive household, I will not tolerate verbal abuse in my birth-room.
[Reply]
Also, sorry, I wish I could edit my pink, but I feel the need to share that my pushing was SO fast and furious that I tore *horribly*. I do feel that it may be due to the fact that they were yelling at me to push so much, which, again, was totally unnecessary under the circumstances.
[Reply]
8 minutes? What? My 2nd baby only took 5 but I’m pretty sure an hour is around average.
With my 1st, I couldnt help pushing at 9.5 cm. I had the midwife screaming at me not to push because of the last 0.5 cm (seriously?!) and because I couldn’t stop my body pushing she looked me dead in the eye and said “fine, you’ve got one hour to get him out or you’ll have a C-section” and proceeded to count down, announcing every 5 minutes. “55 minutes….50 minutes to go”
By the time she got to 10 mins I was crying coz he kept decending and then going back up. He was born after 55 minutes of pushing. It was so awful, but sadly not even the worst part of my birth.
[Reply]
kristen Reply:
June 22nd, 2011 at 3:56 am (Quote)
Oh, my Nicci, that is AWFUL. How traumatic. It seems like it’s even worse when a midwife acts that way. You’re not expecting it as much.
[Reply]
Charity Reply:
June 22nd, 2011 at 4:59 am (Quote)
Sure, let’s punish mom because her body just won’t resist a natural urge. How’s this one, midwifey? You really need to go to the bathroom? Hold it. I don’t care if your bladder explodes while you’re holding it. You have to wait until *I* say it’s ok to go.
[Reply]
kristen Reply:
June 22nd, 2011 at 5:14 am (Quote)
They initially told me to hold it too. OB didn’t come til after my pushing phase started (which was obviously SO long) and they told me to hold it. It really bothered me because I was born in a similar way; I was in the birth canal for 39 minutes because the nurse refused to catch me and the OB was nowhere to be found.
[Reply]
Debra Reply:
June 23rd, 2011 at 1:04 am (Quote)
One of my friends has a daughter who was born with CP. She believes it was caused by not pushing when she felt the urge. The nurses made her wait until the doctor got there which was more than 30 minutes after she started begging them to “let” her push.
[Reply]
Charity had this to say,
Jun 22, 2011 @ 5:02 am (Quote)
There was a reason I always hated cheerleaders. LOL
Same thing happened with my first. “Push him down and keep him down!” “One more push or I’m calling the OB!” I finally got through to my midwife with my second. I’ve done this before and I don’t need you screaming at me.
[Reply]
My second birth I pushed “officially” for about fifteen minutes. Thing is, I had been feeling an urge to push for some time, and just relaxing and letting my body do its thing; not “pushing”, but not “trying not to push”. And, even though I wasn’t “pushing”, baby was being born. So, in my experience, an unmedicated birth doesn’t require active pushing at all.
There was a nurse who tried to instruct me, telling me to hold my breath and scolding me when each “push” was accompanied with a low moan (an ohm, actually). I finally told her to give me a break, and when my husband informed her I’d been in labor for twelve hours, she said, “Well, let’s get this over with, then!” OB stepped in then, telling me, “Keep it up, you’re doing great.” and giving the nurse a warning look.
[Reply]
OP, I am so sorry. I feel your pain. The “or what” was probably what happened to me- after 2 minutes of pushing, my OB (who I hadn’t met before that day) told me one more push and then cut a fourth degree episiotomy, that tore even further. My son is six months old and I just had the last of my stitches removed a bit over two weeks ago. Nice, sOB. I feel your pain, OP!
[Reply]
Add Your Comment.
Previous Post
« “We Have To Do An Amniocentesis To See If Your Baby Is Rh Positive…” Next Post
“Uteri Are Overrated.” »
« “We Have To Do An Amniocentesis To See If Your Baby Is Rh Positive…” Next Post
“Uteri Are Overrated.” »
I’m sorry, but I couldn’t understand you while I was giving you a black eye! Come again?
[Reply]