Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Aug
12
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“That’s Nice, But Everyone Ends Up Getting One.”
“That’s nice, but everyone ends up getting one.” – OB to mother who stated that she wanted to birth without an epidural.
There are 31 comments to this post.
Hyperbole is a valid literary technique, doc, but this is real life, not fiction.
Your statement is factually incorrect, as I’ve had three births (so far) and have not gotten an epidural with any of them (and yes, they were all in the hospital). In fact, with the first two I didn’t have an IV, and with the third I only had a heplock.
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Well if everyone gets one, I guess that makes me no one since I didn’t. Really, what an absolutely ridiculous thing to say. I’ve begun to think that they take all the med students with the worst bedside manner and convince them to become OBs.
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first time mo mmy had this to say,
Aug 12, 2011 @ 9:00 pm (Quote)
Surely not EVERYONE, doc. Males can’t birth =P
Maybe this OB meant ALL patients of him/her got an epidural. I’m not surprised.
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Everyone?
Apparently you haven’t met me, or my sister, or my mum, or grandmum…
…and the shortest of my labors was 36 hours- though I had the sense to stay out of the hospital with my 3rd, at that the longest stay before birth was less than 2 hours.
Hows about we do this- stop threatening the mum, making her miserable and doubtful, then see how easy labor is?
YOU, sir, are an ass.
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Jenny Islander had this to say,
Aug 13, 2011 @ 12:20 am (Quote)
So you’re going to wait until I’m in transition and push something at me to sign, or go work on my husband until he agrees that I am too out of it to know what I want, so that you can stick me (physically and financially) with an epidural?
Thanks for the warning, doc. I’m going to accidentally have the baby in the car.
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Lil had this to say,
Aug 13, 2011 @ 1:56 am (Quote)
Everyone? Strange…I’ve only met one person who’s ever had an epidural…and she still suffers from chronic back pains 21 years later, so not exactly the best advert for getting one…possibly you mean ‘everyone under your care’? In which case the best option would appear to be not being under your care! I hope this statement was made early enough that the patient could change OBs.
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I may be really odd but I did not feel any pain or even slightly uncomfortable when I was being induced with Pit, until I hit transition …. then it was painful but…. I did not have any drugs for the pain….. maybe I did not actually give birth this way twice… my 2 year old and 7 week old are just figments of my imagination
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Nope, not me either. Induced vbac, so a pitocen iv. During hard labor I thought “if this keeps up for hours (thinking 4+ hours), I’ll need drugs. During transition, which hit about an hour after I was at 6, I though “if this isn’t transition, I’m not going to be able to do it.” Then during crowning I mostly thought Ow, Ow, Ow. But I was only saying it, not yelling. My mom told me I sounded really calm through it all. At no point did I think or say I need drugs now, or soon. If crowning lasted long, I might have! Still no tearing though-just a “scuff”.
So no, not everyone has one. Liar.
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Not me! I wasn’t suitable for one because of the nerve damage I already had to my back and not allowed one because I was a VBA2C of an inverse T scar.
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Jane Reply:
August 13th, 2011 at 5:07 pm (Quote)
A friend of mine told her OB practice she didn’t want an epidural because of spinal problems. The OB practice said they didn’t feel comfortable with her delivering without one, so they sent her for an anesthesia consult. The anesthesiologist looked at her x-rays and said, ‘Heck no, I wouldn’t epiduralize you.”
Cool, right? Except my friend brought the anesthesiologist’s report back to her OB practice, and the OB said, “Well, I’m still not comfortable letting you deliver without an epidural.”
Right: the OB was “comfortable” with the idea that my friend could be paralyzed because she (the OB) insisted on epiduralizing a woman who didn’t want it.
My friend sought out a midwifery practice and had birth center births and homebirths afterward. No epidural.
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IF this is true, doc, the reason would be your stellar bedside manner and pure optimism and trust in a woman’s ability to birth naturally. Words can make or break confidence, and you clearly know that and use it to your advantage. Creep.
I’m on call for a client who can’t have an epidural because she has to give birth upright due to a previous birth injury that messed up her pelvic bones. And she’s using a doc who is a Pit pusher, in a hospital with an over 70% epidural rate.
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Kinda hard to get an epidural at home. But if *everyone* gets one, I guess those two births must have been figments of my imagination. Guess they’re not really tearing up my house right now.
In response to JR, childbirth is not always the most painful thing in the world for women. It’s not even painful for me until I hit transition. I had an epiduralized birth with my first and still chose to have my second at home, knowing full well I’d get no medical pain relief. I survived and even enjoyed (yes, enjoyed) that experience so much that I then chose to repeat the experience with my third. If there’s ever a 4th, s/he will be born at home too. With no drugs. On purpose.
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Ah, the memories. I was referred to this practice by people I shouldn’t have asked in the first place and was promptly assigned to the least-desirable MD in the practice as the other 2 were booked for 3 months. I should have left the day I met her, this was just one of her many lovely comments. She was an unfeeling, nasty person who clearly wasn’t interested in her patients. She was obviously a trained surgeon who wanted to bill patients for everything she could come up with and do it in a timely fashion before 5pm. Fortunately, a light finally came on in my head and I got the heck out of there. Found a midwife, birthed at home and was blessed with an uncomplicated delivery. I think many women experience something like this but fear/respect their doctor and stay the course, I wish they would listen to their hearts and find a better way.
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Patronizing much?
And what are you doing to the women that makes birth so painful that they all have to resort to epidurals, even if they don’t want one?
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JR Reply:
August 14th, 2011 at 10:59 pm JR(Quote)
This is the pinnacle of idiocy. BIRTH IS ONE OF THE MOST INCREDIBLY PAINFUL EXPERIENCES KNOWN TO HUMANITY. Doctors don’t MAKE it painful. Thank GOD for epidurals. The moment mine began to work was the happiest moment of my LIFE.
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Billie Jo Reply:
August 15th, 2011 at 3:31 am Billie Jo(Quote)
Actually Doctors DO do things that can make the pain of childbirth un-bearable.
Being forced to stay in bed on your back strapped to however many machines and monitors?
Pitocin is known to make contractions HARDER and longer. Frequently with no real break period in between.
There are a multitude of ways that the DOCTOR makes the pain worse. I am glad you were happy with your epidural but there are risks and many women do not want those risks…
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Jane Reply:
August 15th, 2011 at 5:10 am Jane(Quote)
One of my labors was almost completely pain-free. No meds. It didn’t hurt any more than jogging.
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Kat Reply:
August 15th, 2011 at 5:42 am Kat(Quote)
It’s wonderful you were happy with your birth experience, but frankly I have been through many things that were more painful than unmedicated childbirth.
Migraines that lasted several days, dental surgery, severe earache…
Basically all but the last 20-30 minutes of labor (Without pitocin) is no more painful than a day of intense ballet classes and rehearsals, which is to say a physical challenge, but hardly unbearable under normal circumstances.
Regardless, disparaging someone else’s decisions the way this doctor did is rude, don’t you agree?
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jaed Reply:
August 15th, 2011 at 8:48 am jaed(Quote)
JR, I have some astonishing news for you:
You are not all women.
Your experience does not define what all women experience.
Labor can be painful, yes, for any number of reasons from maternal anatomy to the baby’s being in an awkward position. In this case, epidural anesthesia can indeed be a huge relief, and it’s good that it exists for this purpose. (It is also oten abused to keep women quiet and immobile, which is less good.)
Labor is not always painful, certainly not always THE MOST PAINFUL EXPERIENCE KNOWN TO HUMANITY, and often not painful enough to make an epidural worth the other effects.
More astonishing news: yes, indeed doctors can affect the pain level of a given woman’s labor. I mentioned the baby’s position. Babies will often shift position during labor, but this is much harder if the laboring woman is confined to a bed, and also harder if an impatient doctor has decided to rupture the amniotic sac in order to “speed things up”. Pitocin used for augmentation or induction of labor increases the frequency, length, and strength of contractions and can greatly increase the pain level, and pitocin is often abused. These are some customary interventions that have the potential to cause great pain or increase it, that may even have been used during your birth.
One more bit of news: it is best to avoid responding to an inoffensive and true comment by another poster with a sentence such as “This is the pinnacle of idiocy.” People might think ill of you, if you tend to say that sort of thing.
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Sheva Reply:
August 15th, 2011 at 10:00 am Sheva(Quote)
Well said, thank you.
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BeckyJ Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 11:16 am BeckyJ(Quote)
If I had been able to be up and moving around and be in warm water during labor, I wouldn’t have needed to get an epidural. Same goes for when my last was born. My OB checked my cervix so roughly that I was SHAKING IN PAIN from it, so YES doctors DO make labor more painful than it has to be. I was doing okay, even with pitocin contractions up until she tried to stretch my cervix with her fingers!
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