Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Dec
19
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“They Aren’t Contractions…”
Mother: ”I’m having really awful cramps.”
L/D nurse: (looking at monitor) “They aren’t contractions. If you think this is bad, you should wait until labor gets going and see how bad it can really be!”
There are 28 comments to this post.
1. I said cramps, not contractions. Perhaps you could figure out why I am having cramps? Am I constipated? Stressed? Dehydrated? Something else causing cramps?
2. Thank you for diminishing my confidence in my body and my ability to cope with labor. I was hoping for a knowledgeable and supportive nurse. One who would not belittle my pain, saying that it could be and will be much worse later.
3. Again, thank you for frightening me by saying labor pains will be *bad*, as well as the words “wait and see” like the terrible pain you mention is something to look forwards to.
4. Please find me a nurse who is concerned about my physical distress so I can get a solid diagnosis other than “it’s not contractions” as there might be something actually wrong, and I’d like to get it sorted out as soon as possible.
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Mama Wrench had this to say,
Dec 19, 2011 @ 2:46 pm (Quote)
Um… the first 12 hours or so of labor really DID just feel like menstrual cramps to me. Yet when I went to the hospital — was just starting to feel like labor was “real” — I was already 7 cm, so clearly they WERE contractions. Each individual experience is as unique as the person experiencing it.
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Actually, these WERE the beginnings of contractions. I was being induced for fetal distress and had just been given Cervadil (which isn’t supposed to start contractions). After the nurse said this and walked out of the room, my husband (who’s an RN) repositioned the fetal monitor and found that I was having contractions. Within about 30 minutes he said they were the strongest he’d ever seen–every minute, lasting about 55 seconds, MASSIVE contractions. Even though she only had 15 minutes left on her shift when she said that, I still regret that I didn’t fire her on the spot. She also told me, when I asked if that room had a bathtub, that it didn’t matter because I’d be on the fetal monitor and therefore couldn’t leave the bed. Bad, bad nurse.
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Jessica Reply:
December 19th, 2011 at 4:07 pm (Quote)
I’m glad you only had to deal with her another 15 minutes, too bad you had to deal with her at all! Did you get to labor in the tub after she left?
My mom would make comments to me when I was expecting my first about how bad my menstrual cramps were and how she didn’t think I could go without an epidural. It wasn’t entirely helpful in giving me confidence about my body’s ability to birth!
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abba12 Reply:
December 19th, 2011 at 4:14 pm (Quote)
Same thing happened to me, they seem to think cervadil cramps aren’t real. Well what’s the point of cervadil if it dosen’t cause contractions. They were pretty real to me! By the time they developed into ‘real’ contractions I was 6cm >_<
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Sheva Reply:
December 19th, 2011 at 4:23 pm (Quote)
Ow, cervidil was horrific. Cramps, contractions, whatever you want to call it. All night. Horrible.
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Toni Reply:
December 19th, 2011 at 5:21 pm (Quote)
Wow… one of the major risks of cervidil (or any prostaglandin) is uterine hyperstimulation (BAD-ASS ctx). The only upside to cervidil (rather than other prostaglandins) is that is is in suppository form and can be removed from the cervix if hyperstimulation occurs (unlike the gels). The whole reason they make you wear the monitors while on it is because it can (and often does) cause overly strong, long ctx that can deprive the fetus of O2, thereby distressing the baby, and potentially rupture your uterus (espeically so in VBAC patients -prostaglandins create an even higher risk of rupture than pitocin, just to put it in perspective). Her dismissing your reporting of symptoms was not only asinine, but potentially harmful to you and your baby. I’m so glad your hubby was there to help you and that everything went okay with you and your baby… thanks to Nurse Dipstick you could have been telling a far different tale.
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Melissa Reply:
December 19th, 2011 at 5:30 pm (Quote)
Actually, that’s just what happened. My contractions went way out of control, my baby’s hb dropped to 50 bpm, and they had to give me meds to back the contractions off. Surprisingly, we had a c-section for fetal distress. Funny that none of these risks were presented to me. Unfortunately, I hadn’t done a ton of research on this, since I was supposed to birth in a non-hospital birth center. But I was getting hypertensive, so they sent me to the hospital with no support. It sucked.
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If we’re just going by the machine, apparently my first baby was born naturally without a single contraction. I guess all that laboring I did in the tub and on the birth ball was just me being a big wimp.
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You know, in three labors, my nurses have always insisted my contractions weren’t “strong enough” according to the monitor. One nurse was even turning up the Pit (my induction was medically necessary) literally less than 5 minutes before my baby was born. I’ve submitted a quote from that birth, it should be up in a month or so.
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Stelvis Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 5:17 am (Quote)
Yep. Contraction monitors don’t work on me either (see my “dysfunctional uterus” submission from about a month ago).
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Jenna L Reply:
December 22nd, 2011 at 10:11 am (Quote)
My midwife mentioned that my abdominal wall was quite firm and strong, and they would have a hard time hearing the baby with a fetoscope until right at the very end. Her other point: “Good thing you’re doing this at home. The fetal monitor would pick up much less in a hospital, and they’ll just freak out and dump all kind of drugs in you, then section for failure to progress.”
My abs are short and strong from being a bellydancer for about 20 years. Glad I’m doing a homebirth…
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JennIfer had this to say,
Dec 20, 2011 @ 5:25 am (Quote)
Funny, when I was having my first, they told me the external monitor couldn’t tell them how strong the contractions were – only that I was having them. I guess because the apparent strength of the contractions will vary depending on placement of the monitor? They said only an internal monitor could show actual strength of contractions. Anyone know if this is true? It made sense to me at the time.
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Shavahn Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 6:12 am (Quote)
I’m fairly sure that is true. That’s what my doctors and nurses have told me in the past for both my labors.
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Christine Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 6:41 am (Quote)
That is true. Only an internally monitor can tell for sure how strong the contractions are.
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Jane Reply:
December 22nd, 2011 at 4:27 am (Quote)
And yet they feel confident to send women home because their contractions aren’t strong enough according to the monitor. Don’t you sometimes feel like you fell down a rabbit hole and you’re looking at a table with two items on it, one of which says “inject me intravenously” and the other says “don’t eat me or anything else”?
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The Deranged Housewife had this to say,
Dec 20, 2011 @ 6:13 am (Quote)
I didn’t read the pinked link yet, but lemme guess: the baby was born within 30 minutes of her making this comment. LOL That’s usually how it goes! 
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Jessica had this to say,
Dec 20, 2011 @ 1:41 pm (Quote)
I hate this idea that if you can’t handle “x” pain, you can’t handle labor pains. I had to have a tooth pulled, and a plantar wart frozen during my pregnancy. Those HCPs all made comments about labor being more painful. You know what? It wasn’t. It was more exhausting but not more painful. And I deal with pain by complaining, and making noise. I handled my 26 hour labor better than the dentist visit.
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What bugs me is how many healthcare providers refuse to acknowledge that “cramps” and “contractions” are the exact. Same. Thing. There is no difference. None. If the cells of a muscle are working to shorten and tighten that tissue, then that’s what they are doing: contracting.
The only difference, really, is that sometimes those contracting events work in combination with other hormones to open the uterus for expulsion of a new human, sometimes to expel menstruation products, sometimes to enhance orgasms, etc.
They may vary in frequency, intensity, length or purpose, but they are still the same process of muscular contraction. Sometimes they hurt, sometimes not, but there is no rule declaring “Only Birthin’ Contractions are Real Contractions,” much less that they are always the most painful.
*End rant.*
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Jane Reply:
December 22nd, 2011 at 4:30 am (Quote)
Medicine is all about classification and sorting in order to determine which things are risky and which ones are not. eg, many heart valves are imperfect and somewhat leaky, but most leaky valves are clinically insignificant. They don’t affect performance.
So it makes sense that they’d try to classify cramps as different kinds of cramps. The problem is that they don’t assign different risk factors to anything else. We’ve seen on here that everything is assumed to be high risk unless it’s proven otherwise and sometimes even after it’s been proven otherwise. Big baby? You WILL have shoulder dystocia, the baby WILL perish, the baby WILL split you open from stem to stern, you DO have gestational diabetes even if your blood sugar never tests out over 95 or under 85. Period.
It’s as if cardiologists randomly scanned people on the streets and forced every single person with a heart murmur to undergo open heart surgery.
And yet when it comes to something like cramps, they feel free to tell us the things we’re feeling aren’t things at all. :-b
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When I went into preterm labor at 32weeks, one of the “triage” nurses told me this to, and it had me so worried that when I was induced at 39 weeks as soon as i felt any sort of stomach contraction i asked for an epidural because i was so scared of the pain. I know better now and am planning on a hbac.
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Wow. If only everything were as certain in life as drs and nurses are about their machines…
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