Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Sep
14
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Just Stop Pushing For A Minute.”
“Just stop pushing for a minute.” -L&D nurse to mother seconds before the baby was born onto the bed with no one to catch while the nurse was ordering a take out food order.
There are 68 comments to this post.
Mama Wrench had this to say,
Sep 14, 2011 @ 10:44 am (Quote)
Sorry, but I HAD to laugh at this one! You need to birth in a hospital so you can be properly monitored and have all available resources at your disposal should the worst happen… just don’t let it happen while your practitioners are calling for chicken chow mien!
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Jane Reply:
September 14th, 2011 at 11:04 am (Quote)
And don’t let it happen during shift change because they have a lot of paperwork to take care of, and according to one of the nurses who was supposedly “caring” for me when I had my baby, they could get in trouble for not doing it.
Not caring for patient = not getting into trouble
Not doing the paperwork = whole heaps of trouble
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Kathryn Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 7:08 am (Quote)
I have to wonder on what planet that math makes sense!
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Jane Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 8:20 am (Quote)
They made it very clear to me where the hospital’s interests lay.
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Susan Peterson Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 7:14 pm (Quote)
We used to joke that the hospital would be just as happy with no real patients, which would leave us enough time to get the paperwork done perfectly. “Virtual hospital” we called it.
At one point, not only did we have restraint monitoring sheets, we had to fill out sheets saying that we filled out the restraint monitoring sheets, and for one brief period before the advent of joint commission, we had to fill out sheets monitoring whether we had filled out the sheets monitoring whether we had filled out the restraint monitoring sheets. What is bizarre about this is that the nurse aides filled out the restraint monitoring sheets all at once at the beginning or the end of their shift, scribbling in their initials next to “released and retied” in each 15 minute blocks, which meant that there was NO relationship at all between the sheets and anything which actually happened.
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jaed Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 11:10 pm (Quote)
“restraint monitoring sheets”
“released and retied”
Please tell me that doesn’t mean what it sounds like…
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Susan Peterson Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 5:17 am (Quote)
On a medical unit there are often disoriented and/or demented patients who have to be restrained for their own safety. In particular, their hands have to be restrained because they pull out their IV’s, NG tubes etc. The men get out of bed and walk to the limits of their foley catheter line-and then keep going, pulling a 10 cc balloon down the urethra-ouch!. People who can’t stand on their legs forget that they can’t, get up and try to walk, and fall. So we put a posey vest restraint on them. Nursing homes don’t do that very much any more, but the legal responsibilities of hospitals are different than those of nursing homes. Hospitals are responsible to prevent patients from being injured. When you add that to the fact that people are disoriented from being in a strange environment, that they are ill, that there is the necessity for therapeutic interventions like IV’s, and it equals restraints.
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And this is why doulas/ birth partners are so important. Someone needs to catch!
And why on earth is a nurse ordering take out in front of a patient anyway?!
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Apparently she has never had children??? Trying to stop pushing is like trying to stop a train with your pinkie. My OB yelled this at me while I was delivering my 3rd, and I yelled back, “IT’S NOT ME!! MY BODY’S IN CONTROL!!” Where was the doctor or an OB tech? Why was there one L&D nurse in there with a baby obviously almost ready to come out???? Ay yi yi.
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Jennifer Reply:
September 14th, 2011 at 11:35 am (Quote)
Oh, She probably does have children, they were just all scheduled cesareans so she could meet the doctor’s golf schedule…
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first time mommy had this to say,
Sep 14, 2011 @ 10:56 am (Quote)
Great! While you’re at it, I could sure use the combo #4, supersized, a diet coke and some extra fries! Oh and I suppose a kiddie meal too for the baby =P
How unprofessional! My L&D nurse actually offered to run to Cousins for me! 
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At least one of my nurses who yelled at me not to push apologized afterward as she felt she had just got caught up in the moment. She said, “I’m sorry I said that, I know you cannot stop when your body is pushing.”
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1) Where was the doctor?
2) Was the nurse reprimanded for abandoning a patient in immediate need of attention so she could order take-out?
3) Did they still bill the insurance company for the birth? Because I suspect the insurance company would be just as glad to deduct some amount because the mom and baby didn’t actually receive all the medical attention the insurance company had agreed to pay for.
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Krista Reply:
September 14th, 2011 at 1:26 pm (Quote)
LOL! My friend did this. The doctor wasn’t there to catch her last one, but they tried to bill her for it. She raised a big stick about it with the hospital and insurance and they deducted that fee from her bill.
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Samantha Reply:
September 14th, 2011 at 1:33 pm (Quote)
This just happened to my cousin and his wife. She delivered within 20 minutes of arriving at the hospital, and the doctor was a good 10 minutes behind that. The nurse caught the baby! I told her to just stay at home with a MW next time.
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Kristy Reply:
September 14th, 2011 at 1:35 pm (Quote)
My doc has missed the last two births. With #4 (the first one he missed) we had insurance and I honestly didn’t pay attention to how he billed it. With #5 we were private pay… when I paid the last bit to the nurse he called me and told me he was tearing up the check. I was tickled but surprised. He was there for everything else… checking over the baby and such (family doc so he does the pediatrician ‘stuff’) too… just missed catching… so I don’t fault him not refunding the full amount that we had paid ahead.
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silverhawkwarrior Reply:
September 14th, 2011 at 2:37 pm (Quote)
My question is “Did they bill the insurance company for the takeout?”
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“Just stop pushing for a minute.” -L&D nurse to mother seconds before the baby was born onto the bed with no problems what-so-ever, and mommy scooped up her little one and nursed her right away with no problems what-so-ever. So the next baby was born at home with no problems what-so-ever.
There I fixed that for you.
What a moron! Gee Whiz!
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Okay, so we all know that telling a woman to stop pushing is a very stupid thing to say. But this is what I want to know….
What in the heck was the nurse doing ordering take out from a patient’s room? Seriously?!
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Jane Reply:
September 14th, 2011 at 2:47 pm (Quote)
I would figure it wasn’t that the nurse picked up the phone to order takeout as much as another nurse came along and said, “Hey, we want to order,” and the nurse in question grabbed the menu to look it over while the other nurse didn’t touch the laboring mom because it wasn’t her patient.
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Tee Reply:
September 14th, 2011 at 7:34 pm (Quote)
You could be right! In that case, I’d have to say that I’d be angry at both nurses! It it wildly inappropriate for a nurse to disturb another nurse just for the sake of ordering food. I can not imagine what either of them could have possibly been thinking!
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Jane Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 3:19 am (Quote)
Maybe along the lines of “I’m hungry, and this mom will probably be done in like half an hour, so if I order now, it’ll get here right when I’m free!”
WHich leads to the interesting question of what the nurse would have done if the mom hadn’t delivered yet. “Quit pushing for ten minutes so I can eat my lo mein!”
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Tee Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 11:20 am (Quote)
That’s it! I think we should implement a new rule… as long as the Momma under the nurse’s care is NOT allowed to eat, said nurse is NOT allowed to eat! What do you think?
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Jane Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 11:23 am (Quote)
Inevitable reply: “What! These women are working hard! It would be INHUMANE to deny these women food and water! No reasonable person could expect them to go ten or twelve hours without food! You can’t even do that to prisoners.”
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Tee Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 11:32 am (Quote)
You know, I actually agree with that reply! Whether we like it or not, nurses and doctors do often have people’s lives in their hands and they can not function properly without fuel in their body. To think otherwise is downright silly!
BUT…
Neither can a laboring mother! It is just downright cruel to expect a person to labor and give birth with nothing in their system. Period. End of discussion. Giving birth is incredibly hard work, most certainly equal to spending 12 hours on your feet taking care of women giving birth! As long as you deny a laboring Mom food, you should not eat. At the very least, have the courtesy to not talk about food in front of a hungry Mom!
(Let me add that I know you know all of this, Jane! I just needed to get all that out of my system! Whew, I feel better now! Thanks!)
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jaed Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 5:10 pm (Quote)
You know, when I first read this I was thinking about the cruelty of talking about and ordering yummy takeout food IN FRONT OF someone who you’re forbidding to eat or drink. Some people just have no sense of… well, some people just have no sense, leave it at that.
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Holly Reply:
September 18th, 2011 at 8:32 pm (Quote)
Jaed that is what *I* was thinking!! Hubs won’t eat in the room while I am not allowed to eat. He wants me to think he doesn’t eat at all but I think he grabs a few bites here and there in the bathroom and while refilling my ice chips… I would never deny him that.. but no talking about it or eating in front of me. My father, step mother and step sister did that to me during my first labor… up to and including “YUMMM this is SOOO GOOD!!! Don’t you wish YOU could have some???” UGH! 
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My favorite line on this topic is from a book called “You’re Pregnant”. ‘Telling a woman to stop pushing is like telling someone mid-air to stop falling’.
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My nurses were the opposite. They kept screaming “PUSH!” while one of them crushed my diaphragm in an attempt to “help” me push my baby out. I LITERALLY could not breathe. Afterwards, I was out of breath for days.
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Tee Reply:
September 14th, 2011 at 9:27 pm (Quote)
Oh my word! I am so sorry that you had to deal with such cruelty while giving birth, Kristin. There is just no need to “help” a woman push her baby out! (with the exception of very rare complications) I’d have come unglued had someone tried to do that to me. I am so sorry.
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Kasondra Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 8:32 am (Quote)
The same thing happened to my MIL. When she tells the story you’d think it was normal… Apparently one of the nurses pretty much dove onto her belly to push the baby out…
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Missy Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 12:10 pm (Quote)
This happened to my mom once, too. She had a nurse straddling her and pushing on her abdomen to help push the baby out! INSANE!
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Kristin Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 1:43 pm (Quote)
I wanted to scream at them that I couldn’t hold a breath in to push, or breath at all for that matter… but I couldn’t. I was so sore. And he wasn’t stuck. He wasn’t face up. He was 9,5lbs. And my first. But I don’t see why that would matter.
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Lil had this to say,
Sep 15, 2011 @ 1:37 pm (Quote)
I’ve never quite grasped why you need a doctor there to ‘catch’ the baby in the US, surely that’s what a midwife is trained to do? Our OBs are there to deal with (or invent) complications during the pregnancy, and any resulting C-sections. If the ‘button’ is pushed-where the alarm start going, pretty red flashing lights happen above your door (NOT to be confused with twinkly lights) and midwives get a little flustered-then a registrar or OB should be available, but generally speaking the midwives tend to keep them away from births-safest all round really, as they seem to see danger everywhere! Not sure what the UK equivalent of an L&D nurse is…doesn’t sound like we are missing out on much though, if all these posts are anything to go by. ….I’m not sure I like the term ‘catching the baby’ either, everytime someone writes about their OB turning up just in time to catch the baby, I have this mental image of a doctor, wearing a white doctor’s coat but with one of those face protection masks, massive shin pads and catcher’s mitts runs into the room, slides into a crouched position at the base of the bed, catches the baby and holds it aloft yelling ‘howzat’, before tossing the baby to the nearest midwife and running back out of the room…possibly mixing my cricket with my baseball there, but that’s how it sounds! I think I’ll stick to the ‘midwife being present at the birth’, it sounds less dramatic and less hollywood…but that’s fine by me, I rather like the slightly quieter births!
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Tee Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 2:32 pm (Quote)
Lil, an uncomplicated pregnancy and birth doesn’t need a doctor there to catch the baby. The US is seriously screwed up in that sense. Midwives are illegal in many states, so a lot of times a woman is forced into having an OB instead. Midwives are also often viewed as “hippy dippy” and idiotic here. It’s sad… people just don’t realize that most midwives are very well trained and more than competent in caring for a mother and child during pregnancy and birth.
As for the term, “catching” the baby… it’s a common term found in the natural birthing circles. It’s basically a replacement for the term “deliver.” Most OBs and the general population say that doctors/midwives “deliver the baby” and that’s not true. The Momma delivers the baby! I don’t take offense to the term “deliver” the way a lot of people do but I do much prefer the term “catch.” That’s the word I use. The mother delivers the baby. The doctor or midwife simply catches the baby as the mother pushes him or her out!
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Renai Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 7:18 pm (Quote)
You’re mental image of an ob catching the baby is pretty much on target for most ob-attended births. Replace the catcher’s mitt image with gloves and you’ve got it! Oh, only the ones with knee problems would have the shin pads 
.
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Heather P Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 12:09 pm (Quote)
That’s the image I got when the OB decided she needed to catch. I was pushing and she really said “Hold on a minute” (Yeah, right) She stepped away and donned her catchers gear. (Apron, mask, gloves. Just like a catcher) My husband said later he was wondering what all was going to come out of me.
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Jade Reply:
September 25th, 2011 at 10:34 pm (Quote)
I am with you ont his one Lil. I presume you are in the UK, I am not but Australia has the same thing goin on. No need for an OB unless it all gets complicated (lots of women here would go through life very rarely if ever seeing an ob/gyn) GP and midwives usually do the prenatal care and mids the intrapartum and immediate post partum care.
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The WHOLE story! I had a terrible labor, I was induced at 34 weeks (due to pre-e) and was in labor for 36 hours. When it came time to start pushing, my doctor started setting up, I pushed through one contraction and he immediately got up and left, not ONE word to me! Of course at this point I thought something was wrong with my son, I asked the nurse and she just shook her head and said “It happens all of the time” (later I found out that he had an emergency, but I would have appreciated an explanation)
I never saw my doctor until after I had my son and all he did was poke his head in, saw I had him, and left.
The nurses were terrible, she wasn’t on the phone ordering take out, but another nurse stood in the doorway to my room for a good 20-30 minutes talking about what she wanted to eat, and taking down a list (all of this in the midst of my contractions and pushing) My nurse was on the other side of the curtain to my room (I actually never saw her) every time I felt a contraction coming on I yelled to her “Another one is coming” mind you, she is still behind the curtain yelling “okay, push, 1,2,3,4,5″
I had an epidural, but if you have had one you know that pressure feeling when crowning is happening, I knew he was coming, so I told her (along with my mother and my fiancee) we were all just yelling at her “he’s coming, he’s coming” this is when she told me those words that are forever burned into my memory “Just stop pushing for a minute, I’ll be right there” My son was born onto the table just seconds later, my mom yelled at the nurse that he was on the table, only then did she come out from behind the curtain and swooped up my son.
My son was in the NICU for 9 days for respiratory distress, and I DID make a formal complaint with the hospital administrator, I found out that the nurse had a lot of issues, a lot of complaints (I found this out from the NICU nurses, since I spent every waking moment there we had a lot to talk about 
), but I never heard anything else about it.
My son is now almost 18 months old, happy, healthy, and a great personality, I love him to death but my birthing experience was terrible, I will never deliver at that hospital again.
Thank you for letting me share
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Krista Reply:
September 15th, 2011 at 11:09 pm (Quote)
Wow, what an amazingly horrible situation! I’m glad you made a formal complaint, she totally deserved it. And with your son being as young as he was I can’t believe she wasn’t right here in case he needed help.
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Jane Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 3:53 am (Quote)
Thank you for sharing your story.
It might be worth following up with the hospital to find out if that nurse is still working there and if they didn’t take disciplinary action, following up with whatever state board licenses nurses. A nurse with that many complaints, if they’re all the same caliber as yours, shouldn’t be in contact with patients.
I’m sorry you had such a lousy birth.
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Details Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 1:37 pm (Quote)
You were at 34 weeks. The doctor walked out of the room and the nurse was on the other side of a curtain telling you to push right up until the point when she told you to stop! WTH! Your mother and your fiancee were in the room and neither one of them caught and neither one of them grabbed the nurse by the arm and dragged her back? The head of obsterics should be taken to task for permitting an environment where this could ever happen. There should be a rule about having your eyes on any patient who is preterm. Two providers walked out on you after they told you to start pushing. That is a systemic problem not just individuals with bad judgement. If you tell somebody it is time to push that means it is time to be ready to catch.
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I was asked to stop pushing with one of mine. And I’m sure there was good reason, he was the one with “sticky shoulders” and that was probably the point they were trying to unstick him, but still…..
“Stop pushing” is kind of a stupid thing to say to someone who would happily stop except for the fact that their uterus has shut off all communication with their rational mind and is doing it’s own thing. Yeah, don’t tell *me* to stop pushing, talk to the uterus. I’m not in control anymore.
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Kelli Reply:
September 23rd, 2011 at 1:04 am (Quote)
I was told not to push so the nurse could loosen his very tight nuchal cord but at the time all I heard was don’t push which was so absurd I was offended, I think a more effective thing to say would have been “Don’t add any force to this next push (or your body’s push)” that I could have understood, that I could have done. There were times where I let my body push and times when I intentionally pushed with it, just whatever felt right so asking me to relax for the next one and not add to it would have been fine for me.
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Add Your Comment.
“Oh, no problem… I’ll just tell my uterus to stop contracting and pushing this baby out. Now worries! By the way, can you get me a large supreme with anchovies while you’re at it? I’m famished!”
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