“And some women are flat on their backs with their legs forcibly suspended in midair by these metal struts, and everyone’s staring at the mom’s private parts while ignoring her face, so it’s this total inversion of a human being. Now THAT’s even weirder.”

I guess it must have been the tone? Because most OBs wouldn’t even say they would do this, much less HAVE DONE IT. So even with a snarky tone, this OB is way ahead of most.

This could just as easily been a Thursday comment. He is open to “weird” positions. He has done it before and is willing to do it again. The fact that he considers all fours “with butt in the air” weird is just a reflection of his training. Unless of course the woman he is speaking of was seriously shoulders near the ground/floor/bed and pushing uphill, in which case that does seem a bit weird. Doesn’t it seem to you that you would want your shoulders at least as high as your hips?

“If you think THAT’s weird wait till I bust out the twinkle lights and eat my placenta! ”

Might be something odd for an OB to say (and a little sad that anything other than dead bug us “weird”), but as mentioned above that’s due to his/her training. It’s actually super cool that the OB is open to the idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bF_T3wBE14

Now THIS is a butt in the air!

This entry confuses me a little bit. I guess I’m missing what’s bad about this comment? I hope the OP comes and gives us the back story.

I, too, would not be offended by this. Even if the doctor thinks it’s weird, it’s great he still does it. I don’t need my provider to think everything I want is wonderful just as long as he/she can support me in my decisions.
Waiting for the pink link for further clarification on this.

I’m an all-fours kind of laborer, but I have enough friends in the midwifery community to know that most moms actually aren’t. So, I guess I’d say it doesn’t seem that “weird” for an OB to say this … they probably don’t see it often in the hospital at all, since most moms have epidurals anyway. I have a good friend who’s a postpartum nurse and has to attend births occasionally, and she went to one hands and knees labor and said she felt a bit awkward since it’s not something she’d seen before. When she told me that, I was totally offended, but since thinking about it, I realized it’s just a question of how often they see it. I have three kids, with all three I’ve wanted to labor on hands and knees, but the oldest was born in a hospital and they really wanted me on my back. They tried to make it seem like it was my idea (I had a CNM who was OK, but not great), and the other two were born at home, both on hands and knees. I guess squatting and semi-reclining are both a bit more common though.

Yes, it’s too bad he thinks it’s weird… and unfortunate that because of that bias he probably doesn’t actually offer it to women who might not know to ask about alternative positions… but it’s great that he doesn’t actively try to prevent his patients from using alternative positions!

MOBSW is for any comments that catch the attention – funny, crazy, awkward, silly, rude, weird, outrageous, mean – not just negative or depressing comments. Thoughtful Thursdays was instituted because so many attention-grabbing comments happen to be extremely negative.