Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Dec
10
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“If You’re Leaking When You’re Coughing, You’re Not Doing Your Kegals…”
“If you’re leaking when you’re coughing, you’re not doing your kegals, no matter what you say. It’s not normal to leak and you’re going to need surgery after you deliver to correct it.” – Midwife in training to mother.
There are 30 comments to this post.
Samantha had this to say,
Dec 10, 2011 @ 2:08 pm (Quote)
Funny, I’ve never done kegals and I haven’t had any problems with leaking when I sneeze or cough. Every woman is drfferent. Instead of telling mama that she is a lying, maybe suggest that she see a urologist and see what is causing the problem.
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Bonita Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 4:33 pm (Quote)
Sounds like the problem is an almost full term baby bouncing on her bladder. Totally normal for leaking at that point. Heck, the first time I peed myself in my first pregnancy was around 20 weeks. The extra weight on the bladder does a number to ya. 
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Ha! I did/do kegels religiously and still have to cross my legs when I cough or sneeze while pregnant.
For some strange reason though, it clears up just a few weeks postpartum, and I never had surgery.
This doctor needs to be knocked down a few pegs.
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Whomever this midwife-in-training was training with needed to receive a full report of this visit. It sounds like this trainee needed a little more training in how to deal respectfully with clients.
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Dawn Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 7:34 pm (Quote)
I did eventually report her. According to them, they had no complaints about her before and they did stand behind what she said, but I only saw her in the office once more. Fortunately, her training at this facility is now over so I no longer have to deal with her.
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Maybe this midwife needs to read up on the latest research. Here’s a link, this is refering to an article on the alignedandwell.com site.
http://journeytocrunchville.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/why-you-should-stop-doing-kegels/
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Lisa Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 5:56 pm (Quote)
I was coming here to post similar info, but a different link.
http://mamasweat.blogspot.com/2010/05/pelvic-floor-party-kegels-are-not.html
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Good grief I remember wetting myself a couple of times at work when pregnant and just being given the key to the pad room and told to grab some spare scrubs. We had student nurses at the time as well and I was always paired with one so I could go change and still have someone with my patient if needed.
Funnily enough it cleared up once I stopped getting kicked in the bladder.
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I too leak when I cough or sneeze unexpectedly while pregnant. But, only when pregnant. And it is normal. After all, I am thrusting a couple pounds of baby straight on top of my bladder and sometimes no matter how strong your pelvic floor is it just isn’t enough to cope with that! If it didn’t clear up after baby, more follow-up would be needed, but clearly that wasn’t where this was headed!
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I did kegals throughout my pregnancy (at least 100-200 a day) and I leaked while pregnant. In fact, I still have issues with leaking and my son is 9 months old. Kegals aren’t a solve all to this problem.
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genniemom Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 5:30 am (Quote)
Check out the links that were shared. I had some issues, too. But then I did more squatting and some kegels and everything’s all cleared up. It worked for my mom, too. She’s 50 and had been leaking for 10-15 whenever she exercised. Now she can run outside with me!
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This, as well as the midwife who wouldn’t prescribe me anything for my awful, awful cough right before this one, are mine.
Basically, I was hacking up lungs because I was coughing so hard and she told me the only thing I could do was take Robitussin and warm tea with honey. I was coughing so hard I was no longer wearing pads, I was wearing diapers. I was barely in my 2nd trimester. It was stress incontinence brought on by not only a growing fetus, but also a cough that couldn’t/wouldn’t be contained. Also, this baby is very, very much lower than my 1st was. She’s been on my pelvis so much that I could feel the quickening at 7 weeks and it was right above/on my pubic bone. Even u/s technicians confirmed how low down she is.
I’m 26 weeks PG today and this was told to me back in mid September. I had leakage issues when I was PG with my son, but not like this. And I did still have them afterwards, but not enough to warrant me wearing anything heavier than a liner occasionally.
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Dawn Reply:
December 10th, 2011 at 7:40 pm (Quote)
Oh, and she also told me that I shouldn’t gain more than 10 pounds total with my entire pregnancy (I’m obese). I have 3 more months to go and I’ve already gained 5 from my starting weight, 10 from the weight I first went in on because I had such bad morning sickness. I know in the last month you’re supposed to gain about 1 pound a week. If I didn’t gain any more weight, it would mean I literally wouldn’t eat ever because I can barely stomach food. Fortunately, the other midwives don’t seem concerned with my weight gain. I’m working to stay at the 15-20 point mark.
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Debra Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 12:52 am (Quote)
Ah, that explains it. Us fat people are all lazy ass liars. 
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Dawn Reply:
December 15th, 2011 at 3:49 pm (Quote)
One of the CNM’s is much, much larger than I am. The other is “normal” sized. The third underwent gastric bypass in order to loose weight and told me she was much larger than I am. I love the third one! I should submit this to Thoughtful Thursday. She told me when she did my 1st internal exam with her “There’s plenty of room here for you to birth a 10 pound baby.” I sure hope she can attend my birth, but she’s pregnant and a month behind me, so I’m not going to hold my breath. 
My whole point is that the training was overseen by 1 obese and 1 formerly obese CNM. I can’t believe they let her get away with saying what she did. I sure hope it was because of a professional courtesy and only in front of me.
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I really feel the need to comment on the surgery thing. There is still such a thing as patient autonomy and no one should be able to force someone to have surgery. When presented with all of the facts, a woman may make a decision about how she wants to proceed. I personally have opted not to have surgery when recommended/offered more than once, and had excellent results with exercise, weight loss, and conceiving. Some doctors and apparently midwives are much too quick to jump to surgery. It’s not a miracle solution-surgeries can cause problems that weren’t there, and they may not even fix the problem they were trying to fix. It’s so easy to tell someone else to ‘just get surgery.’ It’s a very weighty decision that should be well thought out.
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Wendy Reply:
December 11th, 2011 at 2:58 pm (Quote)
What’s more is that Public Citizen did an investigation and found plenty of risks and dangers with the mesh used in surgery to repair cystocele. Here is their petition to the FDA: http://www.citizen.org/documents/Petition_to_Ban_Surgical_Mesh_for_Transvaginal_Repair_of_Pelvic_Organ_Prolapse.pdf
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Add Your Comment.
Sounds like this one has a know-it-all attitude. I’m not an expert on this topic, but it seems to me that if you are leaking when you are coughing (in spite of doing kegals) while you have an almost done babe pressing on your bladder that a “let’s wait and see if it all clears up after delivery” would be a better recommendation than threatening surgery. And of course it isn’t nice to call your client a liar.
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