Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jul
30
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“We’ll Have To Get The Lawyers Down Here.”
“We’ll have to get the lawyers down here.” – OB to mother who was refusing a cesarean for a vaginal breech baby.
There are 52 comments to this post.
Jespren had this to say,
Jul 30, 2011 @ 4:54 am (Quote)
You know, I was going to say something smarmy about calling your own lawyer but, this is exactly what is so scary about birth in America today. That a person *you* are paying feels it’s fine to threaten (much less actually do so) you with having you declared non competent to make your own/your child’s own health decisions just because you disagree with him. Any doctor who threatens a patient who isn’t LEGALLY INSANE with over riding their wishes should have their license summarilly suspended until they pass a course in patient rights, informed consent, and the autonomy of adults/guardians.
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Cassaundra Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 8:48 am (Quote)
yes, yes, yes, YESSITY! you are so freaking right!
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How long until birth is illegal in America??
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Kimberly Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 7:40 am (Quote)
Kate, when you say that you mean Vaginal Birth right? I completely agree with that, it seems thats the way things are headed doesn’t it?
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mom of 5 Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 7:56 am (Quote)
As a mom who is about to have her 5th section, the only birth I see as an actual birth is a vaginal one. I never felt like I “gave birth” to my children. They were just ripped from my body, while I laid there like an unfeeling log.
But hey, that’s just me… 
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Cassaundra Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 8:51 am (Quote)
and as valid as that sentiment may be, only a mom who has had your experience should be the one to say that. you can only name an experience if you have HAD it. so we can think, surgical birth isn’t really birth, but to say that to every womyn who has had a surgical birth while politically reasonable is still insensitive.
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Mama Wrench Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 9:17 am (Quote)
I feel the same way. Although I feel like I ‘gave birth’ to my son (since I went through the entire labor/pushing phase), in other sense I don’t, since I didn’t actively participate in his evacuation into the world.
But I feel like it’s a personal distinction. A mom who feels the need to control her labor and delivery (including scheduling c-section) may feel like her birth was a necessary one for her own sense of well-being and mental health and I’m certainly not going to say she didn’t “give birth” the best way for her.
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mom of 5 Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 9:42 am (Quote)
I certainly agree. I would never say ALL mothers who have sections didn’t birth their children. I can only vouch for my personal experience.
Coping with my sections has been an ongoing battle for me. I enter pregnancy with the horrors of OR’s looming in the back of my mind. The logical side of me knows that if it weren’t for surgical birth, I likely would have died in childbirth on my first labor.
This knowledge, however, is little comfort. I wish there was more research in the negative impact on a woman’s mental health following c-sections. Yes, I understand that not all women are affected negatively by it, but some are. In my 4 (soon to be 5) births, I’ve never dealt with PPD, yet the condition is very real. It seems that no one is researching “post-cesarean depression” as if it doesn’t exist.
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Rachel Foster Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 10:31 am (Quote)
Im having my fourth next week and I totally relate to that sentiment. Saying I “gave birth” is awkward because I dont feel like I ever have. Although I say they were cut out like tumors.
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Heather Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 1:22 pm (Quote)
I just want to hug you. I still call my first birth a cesarean birth because even if she was cut out of me, it was how she was birthed into the world–in the sense that a song or book is birthed. It’s how I deal with what happened to me. I am so sorry that you have been through so much. <3
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Kate Reply:
July 31st, 2011 at 3:30 am (Quote)
Yes, I mean Vaginal Birth. How long until this right is reserved for the ‘approved’ primi- and multipara – under 35, approved BMI range, singleton, head down, nonsmall or nonlarge for gestational age, between 39-40wks…this list could be so long, and the pool of women who conform so small… 
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I found out at my 36 week appt this week that my son is breech. Trying things to make him turn but I’m so thankful I’m using my wonderful midwife who is so calm and encouraging about delivering him vaginally even if he remains breech until term. I told my husband if we were using an OB he/she most likely would have already started pushing me to schedule a c-section for the next couple weeks.
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Krista Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 7:52 am (Quote)
Yup. My son was breech at 36 weeks. My midwives are totally cool with delivering breeches, but they wanted me to get an ultrasound to confirm his breech position before we tried turning him. He was breech and the female OB that did the scan told me, “Well, we should schedule your c-section now.” I told her I wasn’t having any of that and she almost died.
She was also mad that we didn’t want to scan for defects, she couldn’t understand why we didn’t want to know. *rolls eyes*
My son turned vertex at 38 weeks and was born at 43 weeks. And he was perfect!
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lilmrsmchenry Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 12:55 pm (Quote)
That is why I was so lucky to find my last OB. When I interviewed her I asked why she went into practice. Her response was that she initially was going to be a midwife but she didn’t want to have to worry about transferring any of her patients to an OB that wouldn’t support them. She was supportive of all of my “crunchy” birth choices including delivering vaginally if breech. (Baby turned vertex at 38 weeks.) She was actually kind of excited by me requesting it since she said most of her breech patients seemed scared to even try it. She was wonderful, if I was still in SC and was planning on having another baby I would go back to her in a heartbeat.
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You do that. By the time you get a court order, I’ll be in a recovery room with my breech baby in my arms.
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road2vba2c Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 7:23 am (Quote)
Then they’ll call CPS on you and have your baby taken away for endangering his life, you’ll be stuck in the red tape of legal kidnapping for 6-12 months, by then your milk will be dried up… Who wants to move to an isolated island in the Pacific??
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mharry Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 7:42 am (Quote)
Don’t count on it. Hospitals have held “emergency” court hearings and sectioned women against their wills before. They’re getting downright efficient at it.
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Nicole Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 8:40 am (Quote)
Yes… in states with personhood laws or in cases of severe life-threatening conditions. I don’t think a doctor would even try that for a breech baby, honestly.
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Kathy Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 11:13 am (Quote)
I was reading on OB/GYN.net recently, and one of the members posted about a woman who was in labor and refusing a section for a frank breech. Calling a judge and getting a court order are exactly what several of the OB’s on there were suggesting be done. The OP didn’t do it, and caught the breech, but it was frightening how many sided with the idea of stripping away the woman’s rights to make choices for herself and her baby.
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Angelica Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 10:07 am (Quote)
I went and looked that up, and that doctor, if what he said was true, was pretty cool about it. But to jump immediately on it and say “call a judge?” WTF?
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Angelica Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 10:24 am (Quote)
but the one I read wasn’t a frank breech, it was one knee down, and the head did end up getting stuck. It sounded kind of scary. :-\ However, some of the other OBs were giving suggestions on how to deliver like it was no big deal too. 
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Kathy Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 10:54 am (Quote)
It’s entirely possible I got the baby’s position mixed up with another one I read, lol! I read on there a lot. My point was to say that Nicole was mistaken in that OB’s wouldn’t get a court order for to prevent a vaginal breech birth. And the main point to be taken away is that no matter what position or situation, the woman’s right should not be trumped by a doctor. It is *her* body and *her* baby. Yes, the attending OB in that case was willing to help her birth her baby, but he did have her sign a handwritten detailed AMA form he wrote up.
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Good. They can inform you that I have the right to refuse.
I seriously doubt that they could get a court order for a C-section because of a breech baby. The cases of court orders have been in cases of severe pre-eclampsia or other life-threatening condition (which breech is NOT), and even then they are rare. Very rare.
By the way, who we choose as our birth attendants is VERY important. If you don’t want to be bullied into a C-section or any other intervention, don’t choose a bully. If you’re at a practice that doesn’t keep their patients (IE: you get whoever is on call), switch practices. Or hospitals. Or STAY THE HELL OUT OF THE HOSPITAL all together.
If women stood up for their rights and took back their births, doctors like this would have to change specialties, because he wouldn’t get away with it.
STOP PUTTING UP WITH THIS SHIT! This is NOT okay! Quit giving these jerks business and they will have to change or move out!
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Jane Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 8:48 am (Quote)
But you forget something about bullies: they’re very charming. They all know how to charm you into believing they’re great guys (or gals) and then when you’re vulnerable, they pin you and do whatever they want to you in order to make themselves feel powerful.
Then you tell everyone what they did, and people say, “Oh, not Doctor Smith. He’s so charming!”
The bullies don’t have you come into the first office visit and show you their cell phone and say “I have three judges on speed dial. If you EVER question anything I say, I will lie to you, I will badger you, I will make up studies that will frighten you, and then I will have you declared mentally incompetent so I can cut you open.”
It’s only the lucky moms who get that kind of treatment early enough that they know they can leave. For the rest of us, the doctor turns from Dr. Jeckyl into Dr. Hyde in the delivery room, and the nurses back him (or her) up, and we’re left blindsided by the fact that our rights, our dignity, our personhood, and our births were just stripped from us by someone we trusted.
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Nicole Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 11:10 am (Quote)
I really don’t think that MOST doctors do that on purpose. They get scared around the time of birth. It freaks them out and they become this scary person. But I do believe there are signs. That’s where birth plans come in. If it makes your care provider fidgety to consider alternative birthing positions or practices then get out.
I will agree that it’s hard. But we really do have to stop putting up with this. When shit like this happens we need to make some noise about it. People who have already had Dr. Smith won’t believe you, but mothers who never have will. They will stop getting patients pretty quickly if we spread the word about it.
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Jane Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 11:26 am (Quote)
I’m not sure MOST doctors do it at all, but ALL bullies do it. And we’ve seen on this site that there’s no shortage of bullies. Bullies are drawn to positions of authority where they get to work with vulnerable people. It keeps them happy.
The other thing we’re fighting is that a lot of women do think of themselves as broken machines. The template of “human” is “male,” to some folks, and therefore women are already defective. You go a little further and it’s easy for those women to believe it was necessary for a doctor to slice open their genitals because otherwise they would have gotten torn open. Or that they needed a bag of a synthetic hormone because the hormone their body produces was defective. Or that they were just too fat and grew a seven pound baby that was just too humongous to deliver. And on and on and on.
I agree we have to stop putting up with this, but just about every woman I know got pregnant and started seeing an obstetrician. The ones I know who had a midwife for their first birth had started care with an OB and then left after shoddy prenatal care. When “obstetrician” is the default, these folks can get away with everything short of murder. And when bullying you by themselves isn’t enough, they charm a judge or a lawyer to do their dirty work for them.
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Heather Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 1:39 pm (Quote)
That last chapter… it’s so true. I mean, I know first time mamas who never saw an OB–it’s usually because they had a friend who used midwives and gave them the head’s up. But with my first baby, I thought what you did was get an OB. I didn’t know there WAS an option (even knowing friends whose parents planned homebirths, it just didn’t OCCUR to me) and when I found out about them, it was only to learn that they were ‘illegal’ in my state.
Then, I was scared by the kinds of crap comments like road2vba2c and mharry posted above and ended up with an unnecessary cesarean in the end–even thought I DID try to get away from the OB. Both attempts to flee to a midwife were ruined.
I know that those two I mentioned are just frustrated and raising awareness that that stuff happens, but it’s NOT HELPFUL. And it’s something you should NEVER tell a FTM. If someone had had the brains to tell me, “What midwife? If you transfer, you don’t even mention that you tried to birth at home. You just go in like it’s time to give birth, never mention the midwife and she’ll never face charges. No one will know unless you’re stupid enough to tell them,” then I would have had a peaceful homebirth–I’m certain of it.
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The Deranged Housewife Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 10:49 am (Quote)
Unfortunately the judge doesn’t know this – so they find the most sympathetic judge they can and pursue their case with them. They are way more likely to side with the doctor because “he’s the doctor” and they believe his opinion that you’re putting your baby in jeopardy. Then, if something does happen during a vaginal delivery, God forbid, they could probably come back and take the baby away from you as a case in point. However, if something happened during a cesarean – well, that’d just be too bad, I guess. *eyeroll*
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Debra Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 1:02 pm (Quote)
Exactly. If the doctor says it would endanger the baby to try a vaginal delivery, the judge will believe him. The baby’s rights usually come before the mother’s. Not that they should – that’s just the reality today.
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Heather Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 1:44 pm (Quote)
You guys do know why that is, right?
You CAN’T sue if something goes wrong in a cesarean that isn’t caused by gross medical negligence. You CAN sue if something goes wrong during a vaginal delivery, even if it was unavoidable.
Doctors are reacting to the fact that they CAN be sued for a breech baby being born ‘wrong’. A lot of doctors from the early 80s were sued in the 90s for ‘causing’ cerebral palsy by not forcing babies out faster who had cord issues, etc. They ran a ton of commercials about it when I was in high school–”If your child was born vaginally between the years la la and so so and has cerebral palsy, you may be entitled to a settlement.”
My VBAC doctor was explaining why his coworkers wouldn’t do VBACs about the cesarean = no suit vs vaginal = you can sue. And since he’s been sued for vaginal births in the past (something I just found out last week), I’m kinda surprised that he didn’t let it chase him away.
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I am 100% certain that I would have had to have a (court-ordered) c-section if I were using an ob in the hospital. My daughter was transverse until a few hours into my labour, and she came out perfectly fine, as I was in my own home, and able to labour on my hands and knees to give her the room to turn. I wouldn’t have had that opportunity in the hospital.
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Unless the OP explains, what’s posted here doesn’t necessarily mean the doctor wanted the lawyer to get a court order for c/s. It could be he wanted the lawyer to get the patient to sign a waiver saying that she was going against the doctor’s advice, to prevent her from suing them if something went wrong. It’s still a way to intimidate her, but somewhat less sinister.
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Heather P Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 6:57 pm (Quote)
That’s very optimistic of you, but not true. I signed an AMA in labor for refusing an IV. Then I was coerced into getting one later. They don’t need lawyers for a waiver.
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Debra Reply:
July 31st, 2011 at 9:57 am (Quote)
But refusing an IV is less serious than refusing a c/s, in their eyes. If you’re refusing a c/s and the doctor wants to intimidate you, he’ll ask for a lawyer to come to get you to sign the waiver. Some women would think – wow, if he’s calling in the lawyer, it must be more dangerous than I thought and they’ll cave.
I’m sure they did coerce you, but their notes will say “patient requested IV” or “patient consented” and they don’t think they did anything wrong. They were wrong but they’d never admit that to themselves.
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Stacie Hogan had this to say,
Jul 30, 2011 @ 4:36 pm (Quote)
perfect, I’ll get my lawyers down here to witness you violating my rights. Sounds like a good plan.
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You absolutely need to get your lawyers down here! It’s be great for them to see how you mistreat and mishandle your patients firsthand rather than having to rely on the patient’s word! What an awesome idea! Tell you what, give me their number and I’ll call them myself!
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I am a resident, and I don’t work in OB, but I’ve been in situations where a patient refuses a treatment, and the first thing that pops into my head is “Okay, we’re going to need the lawyers,” or “We’re going to need social workers in here.” Not because I’m threatening them with forcing them, but because I can see it going all sorts of whacky bad and can really see myself or the hospital getting sued to next July. So, this is probably what this provider was actually thinking. But I don’t know why they said it. This is usually the type of thing that you think and don’t vocalize until you get to the nurse’s station and tell the unit secretary to call legal/social work.
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Unfortunately, the more charitable explanations above do not apply. The OB meant that if I did not consent to the C-section, he would try to have me declared incompetent. My midwife confirmed that afterwards.
I had all midwife care from a very well-regarded group affiliated with the hospital. However, when the midwives discovered, while I was in labor, that the baby was breech, they called in the OB on call, whom I had never met before. That’s when everything went to hell.
The same OB also said to me, “if you won’t consent to a c-section, your only other option is to go home, get in the bathtub, and hope for the best.”
The midwives are not blameless here–they had said all along (including 2 days before I went into labor) that the baby was vertex, but afterwards, all of the doctors and nurses said that from the shape of my son’s head and legs, he had been breech for a while. The midwives totally missed it.
By the way, the previous post (about the OB who wondered why anyone would want a vaginal birth when C-sections are so much better) was also mine. The OB said this to me while I was sobbing through the operation.
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Thank goodness the lawyers know how to deliver a breech baby!
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Allie Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 4:52 am Allie(Quote)
bah, you totally beat me to it LOL
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Heather Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 1:19 pm Heather(Quote)
LOL!
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