Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Aug
13
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Well, It’s Good To Know At Least One Of You Can Do It Properly.”
“Well, it’s good to know at least one of you can do it properly.” – Midwife to the mother and her friend, who was her labor support, immediately after the mother birthed her baby, 20 minutes after arriving at the hospital.
There are 28 comments to this post.
I…don’t really understand what she’s getting at.
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Leigh Reply:
August 13th, 2011 at 7:43 pm (Quote)
I’m glad I’m not the only one… I’m not getting this one at all.
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Ashley Bean Reply:
August 13th, 2011 at 8:31 pm (Quote)
Me either. I read it 4 or 5 times to see if I was missing something, but I still don’t get it. Maybe the OP will clear things up for us. I mean, what did one of them do “improperly”?
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Elysiarenee had this to say,
Aug 13, 2011 @ 8:14 pm (Quote)
Does it mean ‘at least one of you’ as in laboring women and ‘doing it properly’ as in only taking 20 minutes? This would be a strange attitude to hold.
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Iiiiiis…. she mistaking them for a lesbian couple with the implication that at least one of them could be the birth mother? That’s the only thing my brain’s coming up with to make this make sense.
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Lil had this to say,
Aug 14, 2011 @ 12:04 am (Quote)
I’m guessing it’s something to do with the timing, as it specifically mentions birthing baby 20 minutes after arrival at the hospital…it also has the dreaded ‘at least’ comment-not good! OP, please tell us the whole story!
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Rebecca Reply:
August 14th, 2011 at 9:39 am (Quote)
Maybe- I got a comment about coming to the hospital to early by one of the nurses. My first was precipitous, so when I discussed my concerns with the OB during prenatal appointments, he suggested I come in when my contractions were a little further apart than they normally suggested. I was admitted in labor with my son at around 11 am and he was born at 2:13- I didn’t realize I was in labor. With my daughter, I labored at home for six hours before we went in (again about 11 am coincidentally) and she wasn’t born until 7:38 that evening. Turns out she wanted to be born face up, which as I understand, can make things take a bit longer
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Susan Peterson had this to say,
Aug 14, 2011 @ 10:59 am (Quote)
I think the “you” means “women” and “patients.” I am thinking not so much of the 20 minutes after she got to the hospital, but that the woman competently gave birth to her child; the midwife may have been dealing with either a lot of labors which didn’t go well, or a lot of women who didn’t take any responsibility for their own labor and weren’t in any way ready to face the challenges of labor, so that they complained from the first contractions and fought the whole process.
I think it must be discouraging to have a natural view of birth and have to be the midwife for a whole slew of women who yell for an epidural the moment they get to the hospital. I know that is why I never became an OB nurse after getting out of nursing school. I didn’t think I would be able to accept either the overly interventive practices of the doctors, or the women who passively accepted them, or worse, the women who beg for them and want to be relieved from experiencing their labors and births as much as possible.
I think in such a situation I would have felt exactly like this midwife, if finally a patient showed up and gave birth naturally. I think though, that she should have kept this thought to herself, and confined herself to telling the woman that she did beautifully.
Susan Peterson
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I actually like that this post is ambiguous! But I think that Susan Peterson is on the money…unless the labour support has a history with the midwife, which makes the comment nasty instead of venting a frustration many people have with our society.
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Did the midwife also deliver a baby for the labor support lady and her labor was really long? Because that’s all I can figure.
Besides, maybe the mom had a “precipitous” labor, or waiting until she couldn’t wait any more. Or whatever. You should never compare someone to someone else. I learned that being one of five kids. Don’t compare people.
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Jenn had this to say,
Aug 14, 2011 @ 7:02 pm (Quote)
Sometimes these posts are positive, so my take is that she was paying her a compliment, in that other than other women who show up too early and end up with interventions, this woman stayed home until the last possible moment, thereby avoiding interventions, and “doing it right.”
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This was mine…the quote was perhaps paraphrased a little too much. Mama’s second birth. First one was a few years prior – an unnecessary induction at 39 weeks because waters ruptured spontaneously (pitocin within 6 hours of SROM), followed by a long painful labour, forceps delivery and an episiotomy performed without consent. Baby showed no signs of distress at any point during the labour.
The hospital run ‘birthing’ classes and tell all the pregnant women to aim for a natural birth. The hospital also induce over 60% of pregnant women, have a c-section rate over 40% and a VBAC rate below 10% (i.e. they may preach about natural birth, but they do nothing to support/facilitate it). All women at this hospital are required to see an OB.
Second time around, mama decided to stay home and labour for as long as possible because she wanted to avoid an induction. Mama got to hospital when contractions were a minute apart, calm and collected. Baby born within 20 minutes of mama arriving in the birthing suite, no tearing (mum birthed on her knees on the floor, no directed pushing), no drugs, no VEs, no intervention. Baby alert and responsive, looking for breasts straight away.
Within 5 minutes of baby being born, a midwife who wasn’t even present for the birth walks in and says ‘well its good to know at least one of you can do it properly’.
‘One of you’ referring to ‘one of you pregnant/labouring women’ and ‘do it properly’ I assume refers to ‘give birth naturally’.
She obviously didn’t get the irony that mama was only able to ‘do it properly’ because they DIDNT HAVE TIME TO INTERFERE!
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How sad… I should also mention that the midwife that made the comment then continued on to complain about the woman in the room next door who wasn’t coping and was asking for an epidural, all the while rolling her eyes.
Guess what? Turns out the woman in the room next door is a friend of mama’s and we found out later she also induced without medical indication and had been forced to lie on her back for 16 hours of pitocin-induced labour with a monitor strapped to her belly. She wound up with c-section.
I should also say, I’m not the mama – I’m the labour support/friend who was there for both of mama’s labours. The midwife that made this comment was being condescending and nasty. It was a stark contrast to the kind-hearted midwives who came into the room in the hours after the birth (i.e. not bursting into the room within 5 minutes of birth, complaining about the woman next door) and congratulated mama on achieving the natural birth she wanted and good on her for doing such an excellent job birthing her baby.
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Debra Reply:
August 22nd, 2011 at 6:37 pm (Quote)
One of the few good things about the health care system in the US is that with the newish HIPAA regulations (for patient privacy), the midwife would be scared to say ANYTHING about another patient in front of someone. She’d lose her license if she got caught doing it.
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How stunningly inappropriate.
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