Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Nov
24
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Thoughtful Thursday! “Don’t Worry, You Have A Very Ample Pelvis.”
“Don’t worry,you have a very ample pelvis.” – OB to mother who expressed concern that she was carrying a large baby.
There are 8 comments to this post.
OP, I’m so happy you had a knowledgeable OB!
My midwife said the same thing, in different words. It’s so easy to convince a mom either way. What makes it OK to be disparaging and discouraging about a mom’s ability to birth?
I’ll never understand it.
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OP, I’m so glad your OB was so encouraging!
However . . .
Call me nit-picky, but isn’t this just the other side of the “Your pelvis is too small” card? Doesn’t saying this imply that if this woman didn’t have an “ample” pelvis she would have to have a c-section? Wouldn’t it be better to just say, “The pelvis opens up during pregnancy and labor. I’m not worried about your ability to birth your baby. If a problem does arise, we will talk about options to address it.”
Sorry to be a downer on TT, but I think it’s a little off that we blast OBs for saying a pelvis is small, but love them when they say it’s big. Just leave size out if it and talk about the facts!
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Mama Wrench Reply:
November 24th, 2011 at 4:40 pm (Quote)
I was thinking the same thing. The only way to “prove a pelvis” is to allow the woman’s body to perform and see how things go. You can’t look at a size 2 woman and “know” that her pelvis is “too small” any more than you can look at a size 12 woman and “know” that her pelvis is “ample.” But many OBs believe that how a woman looks is sufficient data for a pelvic diagnosis.
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Of course, pelvimetry isn’t the end-all, be-all, though it can give some helpful data. One of the most valuable pieces of data is the pelvic shape, because a platypelloid pelvis (very rare, about 5% of women) can present some real problems for vaginal births, and other pelvic shapes (such as android) are more conducive to OP babies. So it’s good to have a bit of an idea about that, in order to mitigate potential difficulties, but in the end, ligaments soften, bones move, etc. As a pp said, you really can’t know till you try.
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Ample Pelvis Mom had this to say,
Dec 5, 2011 @ 4:03 pm (Quote)
Well, surprised this showed up under “Thoughtful Thursday” … When my OB said this to me, I definitely didn’t find it comforting!!! It was more of a “Don’t worry, you’re a big woman, if you have a big baby, it’s ok.” I, too, was wondering what my “ample pelvis” had to do with whether or not I’d have the baby ok or not. (For the record, I went on to have a c-section after same doctor tried to induce me and the induction failed …) NOT to mention the fact that a 9 months pregnant woman does NOT want to hear about ANY part of her that’s “ample”!! :-p
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I hope this OP is the same as the one in the previous post (“You Can’t Have a Vaginal Birth”), just with a better OB!
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