Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Oct
30
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“You Didn’t Have Any Stitches…You Must Have Gotten Confused With Delivering The Placenta…”
“No, you didn’t have any stitches. Your chart says so. You must have gotten confused with delivering the placenta or something.” – L&D Nurse to mother who inquired about the stitches she had received after birthing her baby.
There are 44 comments to this post.
(I’m not the OP, but…)
Uh, there was a mirror.
I watched him both times: cutting and sewing.
The sewing was AFTER he yanked the placenta out.
Was that enough detail for you Nurse Doofus? Or would you like to needlessly page the OB to ask?
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Alyson Miers had this to say,
Oct 30, 2011 @ 7:09 pm (Quote)
Didn’t we have an entry here some time ago with an OB who cut an episiotomy *after* the baby came out in order to deliver the placenta?
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Details Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 5:21 am (Quote)
Yes we did! I remember that moron!
To the OP below: I can see the nurse getting mixed up and thinking she read something about not having an episiotomy. But I can’t see her arguing with you. That was really dumb of her. What is the pont of arguing with a patient. The nurse cares for how many patients a week and the mother gives birth how often? So who is more likely to be mixed up?
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I told the nurse to keep the juice coming to dilute the urine so it wouldn’t hurt too much to pee, and she told me not to worry about it, because I didn’t have any stitches. When I told her I did, she came out with this one. I told her I know the difference between pushing something out and having a midwife go at me with a needle and thread, especially considering I didn’t have an epidural, and felt every single stitch. She just kept insisting I was wrong, and that if I had any stitches, the chart would say so. Best part is she came back later and casually mentioned that the chart did, in fact, say I had stitches.
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Kristin Reply:
October 30th, 2011 at 7:22 pm (Quote)
Wow. Selective illiteracy. Goes right up there with constant stupidity.
I’m sorry you had such a crappy nurse.
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BeckyJ Reply:
October 30th, 2011 at 8:44 pm (Quote)
*head desk* Wow. Healthcare at its best. Honestly……. They don’t call it medical PRACTICE for no reason. Sorry OP.
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Aron Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 5:44 am (Quote)
“Casually mentioned”…heaven forbid she actually apologize for insisting you couldn’t tell the difference between pushing out something squishy and being stabbed repeatedly with a needle.
And, geez, it’s not like the charts are filled out by a deity from on high and are thus never wrong; they’re filled out be normal humans like you and me who occasionally forget to add certain details, or get them wrong entirely. (As evidenced by one chart I read which listed the length of one baby at birth as 48″. Then again, maybe the mom in that scenario was 12 feet tall, so I could be wrong.)
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CNicole Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 12:51 pm (Quote)
I lol’d at the 48″ long baby, they gave birth to a 7 year old 
Charts are wrong all the time. One one page of mine, my daughter’s birthday is wrong, there are different Apgar scores and with my other daughter I got the epidural before the AROM, not after the AROM induced distress that forced me to stay in bed on the monitor, thus making it that I couldn’t cope with contractions like I had before when I could move around.
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Alanna Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 1:22 pm (Quote)
My chart didn’t even have it checked that I’d had a c-section! And I KNOW that that one happened! This then led to some dumb nurse getting mad at me when I acted like the decision to go home had more to do with how I was doing (since I’d just had surgery) than how my baby was doing. She made me feel like crap for that one!
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CNicole Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 1:31 pm (Quote)
Yikes! I am so sorry. How dare she? I mean even if you had a vaginal birth and didn’t feel physically ready to go home, then she should investigate why, or get a doctor to check on you. You know, in case there is something that needs to be treated,like an infection or too much bleeding. She should also notice that you moved like a mom who just had a cesarean (you know, that sort of hunched over shuffle we tend to do) and maybe think to see why, and fix the error in the chart. Hugs to you. I hope she felt bad once she realized and maybe learned something.
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Mama Wrench Reply:
November 3rd, 2011 at 4:30 pm (Quote)
Mine lists my reason for c-section as arrest of dilation, even though I was 10cm and pushing for TWO HOURS before going in to surgery.
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Kasondra Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 6:04 am (Quote)
With my first I had a tear that required stitches…with my second I had a teeny tear that my midwife told me would heal if I kept my legs together (it did). BOTH burned when I peed…so I don’t see why it matters to her whether or not you had stitches. If it burns to pee and you want more liquids (a good thing after birth ANYWAY) then why does it matter to her?!
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Heather Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 11:52 am (Quote)
Why do so many nurses seem to be unable to apologize when they screw up? Why is, “I’m sorry, I misread the chart?” SO hard? *sigh* Not just nurses, not at all. People in general. Seriously.
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Kristin Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 1:04 pm (Quote)
Covering her behind in case you might want to sue her?
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Heather Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 1:13 pm (Quote)
You can’t sue someone for not reading the chart if they don’t do anything but argue with you (if they give you meds you’re allergic to, sure, but that’s negligence–can’t sue someone for being an ass, lol). Since she did come back and admit it was in the chart, she couldn’t do any more harm with an, “I’m sorry.”
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Diana Reply:
November 1st, 2011 at 5:35 am (Quote)
I guess I’m terrbiel because after she ‘casually’ mentioned that the chart said I did in fact have stitches I would have made a big deal about her inability to read and that I wanted someone else taking care of me. I mean what is the big deal with you getting juice! Seriously?
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Reading the pink link just brought back a memory of my most recent birth that I had completely forgotten. A nurse woke me up at 2:00 a.m. to “change the dressing on my c-section incision.” Um, I didn’t have a c-section.
“Yes, you did. You had twins, remember?” I did indeed have twins, but not by section. I lifted my gown and asked her if that looked like an incision to her. She was absolutely shocked that I could have had a vaginal twin birth. This nurse was by far the worst one I had during my 3 week stay. She worked 3rd and would come in almost every night, wake me up to do vitals, and chat my ear off about her personal life.
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Tee Reply:
October 30th, 2011 at 8:57 pm (Quote)
Jen, I have to admit that this made me laugh just a little bit! It’s so sad to think that a majority of health care providers assume a woman can’t deliver twins vaginally!
Someone help me out here. I know that all sorts of different drugs are given during various forms of birth. But I have NEVER heard of a woman being so drugged that she can’t remember if she had stitches. (Or in your case, a c-section.) Has anybody ever come across this?
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Dove Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 4:39 am (Quote)
What I found incredibly sad in the maternal health class I’m in right now was that the only treatment of twin birth was, “Now they just do a c-section.” I sit in the first row of the class, and I had to use some effort not to make a face at my teacher. This wasn’t the only fact I disagreed with! So yeah, that’s what my class of future nurses was taught as the ONLY option.
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Kara Reply:
October 30th, 2011 at 9:23 pm (Quote)
After my twin birth they kept coming to check on my epidural site, the one I didn’t have. But my notes said I had an epidural (and the anesthesiologist got away with billing the insurance for it, even though we argued with them over it, because it was in the notes). They were confused, I’m pretty sure one guy even asked, “are you sure?” Um, heck yes, I’m sure that I arrived pushing and would have noticed someone sticking a needle in my spine. They seemed shocked I had twins with no epidural, but at least they all thought I was amazing lol.
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BeckyJ Reply:
October 30th, 2011 at 10:15 pm (Quote)
They were probably even MORE shocked that you never scheduled a c-section for your twins. One of my friends was asked that when she told another friend that she had her twins vaginally. “Well why didn’t you schedule a c-section for that?” Cuz I’m not a nitwit!
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CNicole Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 12:45 pm (Quote)
I wonder if my chart says I had an epidural? The nurse came to take mine out after my second cesarean and was surprised that there wasn’t one (I got a spinal on the OR table, so there was no catheter to take out)
Oh, and congrats on the VBA2C, and with twins! Amazing!
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Diana Reply:
November 1st, 2011 at 5:37 am (Quote)
I hated the ones who would wake you up at night and chit chat. ‘I know it’s your time for day but most people SLEEP at night.’
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Claire Reply:
November 1st, 2011 at 2:44 pm (Quote)
You’ve brought back memories of my own!
“I’ve come to do her top up” looks around for NG “um… how do you give her top ups?”
“We don’t she’s breastfeeding”
Looks at the expressing bottle in her hand and sees a different name to mine on it. Apparantly she’d been given this bottle and told to feed my baby!
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Claire Reply:
November 1st, 2011 at 2:48 pm (Quote)
Or the time I woke up with a midwife about to inject Heparin into my arm, not even bothering to wake me!
I shot my hand out to grab the needle and said “I do that and it doesn’t go in my arm!”
If she’d have managed it I’d have seriously kicked off! I hate needles!!!
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BeckyJ Reply:
November 3rd, 2011 at 5:13 am (Quote)
Jesus! In your sleep?! *jaw on the floor*
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Details Reply:
November 3rd, 2011 at 6:12 am (Quote)
WTH aren’t they supposed to check your arm band and ask you if this is correct. Maybe that is only in the ER where they are dealing with new people every 20 minutes. But I’ve had some hospital experiences that are like going through airport security recently – not baby related. And I remember matching arm bands being a really big deal with at least one of my boys. And just getting my blood drawn at the lab they want proof positive that they have the right person and are doing the right test.
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heather Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 1:09 am (Quote)
nope. i’m in nursing school (stepping stone toward becoming a midwife in my state) and it’s driven home HARD about the rights of medication administration: right drug, right patient, right dose, right route, right time, right documentation, right reason (ie: informed consent) and right of refusal. the fact that the midwife here was ready to give meds without first waking the patient and getting consent and did not check patient’s ID band (we are required not only to check ID bands in EVERY part of the hospital, but also ask the patient to identify themselves as well) sets of huge warning bells!
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While I’m not the OP I had this with a midwife too!
I knew I had been stiched because they weren’t admiring the view for 45 sodding painful minutes!!!
But because my notes said I HADN’T had stitches she refused to check! Luckily i knew how to look after myself but still!
That midwife was banned from coming near me ever again even when she was on call for the homebirth of my 3rd baby. There was a note on the door saying if the attending MW is *x* go away I would rather do this unassisted!
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Oh my goodness THAT HAPPENED TO ME! I had twins, vaginally, in a military hospital and when the next shift came on, a woman marched into the room (didn’t knock) skipped any introduction, and proceeded to lift my gown and lift my belly folds looking for something. “What is wrong?” I asked naively. “You did have a c-section, right?” She accused. “Um, no.” I replied. “Oh.” She sailed right out, without ever introducing herself. I mocked her to my hubby later – it was a “drive-by exposure twofer” my belly fat exposed, her ignorance exposed.
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Kristin Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 1:12 pm (Quote)
I would have had to retrain myself from slapping her hand away and saying, “May I help you?!”
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jaed Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 4:15 pm (Quote)
Why restrain yourself? 
In that situation, with some random coming into the room and moving your clothes aside and touching you, it seems like a perfectly rational response to me. In fact, I’d be commending you for politeness and self-restraint if that’s all you did. (I’m amazed that Christine was so polite also.)
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Tee Reply:
October 31st, 2011 at 2:58 pm (Quote)
The day that ANYONE comes and starts removing my clothing without bothering to ask permission first is the day they will get slapped. One nurse made the mistake of doing that when I was in the ER. She will more than likely never make that mistake again!
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Add Your Comment.
For real? Look. If there are stitches, then there are stitches even if the chart says there are none.
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Kristy Reply:
October 30th, 2011 at 6:20 pm Kristy(Quote)
I’m hearing Tigger in one of the Winnie the Pooh movies: “Who you gonna believe? This official chart (map in the original)… or your own eyes?”
Even the Preschool audience knows what the answer *should* be to that one.
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