Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jan
4
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…I…Like To Make Sure There Aren’t Any *Surprise* Problems With The Baby.”
“Well you’re young. . . and CLEARLY not very bright. I’ve seen what types of things girls your age do before and during pregnancy and always like to make sure there aren’t any “surprise” problems with the baby.” – OB to 18 year old mother with her own birth defects (cleft palate and lip, club feet and uterine didelphys) when encouraging her to undergo amniocentesis.
There are 28 comments to this post.
So is it the woman’s age or her birth defects that make her “clearly not very bright?”
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Kristy Reply:
January 4th, 2012 at 3:56 pm (Quote)
One (or both) of those or it’s her gender. Darn ‘girls’ going and getting pregnant. Men should have the babies… then it would get done right. (At least that seems to be the attitude my OB with my first had.)
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BeckyJ Reply:
January 6th, 2012 at 10:43 am (Quote)
Studies actually show that most men’s pain threshhold is too low to tolerate labor pains very well, and they would be in too much agony to do much the next few days.
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Kristy Reply:
January 6th, 2012 at 10:55 am (Quote)
Yeah… but when has an OB been known to believe what the silly *studies* say?
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BeckyJ Reply:
January 6th, 2012 at 11:50 am (Quote)
hahaha Only the ones that seem to benefit their belief system! When I wanted to delay cord clamping, my OB pointed things out that supported immediate cord clamping and I brought in my own research on studies that I’d done. He didn’t have anything to say after that.
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We should feel sorry for people who feel the need to say something like that. This doctor felt threatened by a young mother’s informed refusal.
Threatened enough to resort not only to veiled insults (that she’d do something during pregnancy to harm her baby, which wouldn’t show up on amnio anyhow) but also to outright insults.
It’s pitiful, really. Imagine being in such a place that someone disagreeing with your recommendation causes you to need to lash out at them that hard. 
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Mama Wrench had this to say,
Jan 4, 2012 @ 4:30 pm (Quote)
So, let me make sure I’ve got this right: The mother isn’t bright because she doesn’t want to put her baby at risk of death for a procedure that would only put the *doctor’s* mind at ease. (Obviously, if it would’ve provided her with a measure of comfort, she wouldn’t have refused.)
Also, amnios test for genetic disorders — none of which are in the control of the mother, regardless of her age. There are far less invasive ways to test for controllable variables like drug use and STDs. (Not that he should be bullying her into ANYTHING, but to risk her baby’s death is just sickening.)
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Chelsea Reply:
January 4th, 2012 at 5:29 pm (Quote)
Is it horrible that I have lost so much faith in the doctors whose comments appear on this site that I’m thinking he might just have *wanted* to do an amnio *because* of the risk of the baby dying? That Doctor God wants to *save* a teen mom from herself.
*barf*
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Mama Wrench Reply:
January 4th, 2012 at 5:44 pm (Quote)
I think that’s fairly realistic actually…. there was a doctor near where I live who lost his license because he was advising “ill-fit” mothers that their babies had conditions “incompatible with life” in order to compel them to terminate — for their own good, of course.
He was a big part of why I’m getting into sonography.
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Jane Reply:
January 4th, 2012 at 5:57 pm (Quote)
At the same time I was pregnant with my baby who had anencephaly, I knew another mother whose baby had anencephaly. Her doctor asked if she wanted an amnio, and she declined. He then said, “I think that’s for the best” and admitted that some doctors will poke around a little too much with the needle if the baby has an incompatible with life condition and the mother declined a pregnancy termination.
I was horrified. Nothing gives these doctors the right to act on behalf of the mother to get rid of a pregnancy they don’t feel is worthy of continuing. Nothing.
But that’s not to say this above doctor had any intention of harming this mother’s pregnancy. Most likely this doctor just saw a mom who had experienced birth defects and wanted to provide legal coverage for the practice by doing the test, and when the mom turned it down, the doctor felt threatened and lashed out.
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What I read into this one is that the doctor feels that termination should be considered for birth defects that the mom actually displays. So he is (I’m assuming he…) saying is that the mom herself should have been terminated for her “shortcomings”. He is saying that mo had birth defects and shouldn’t have decided to have her own children to pass them on genetically. That is the probably the most awful thing I have ever read here.
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Kat Reply:
January 5th, 2012 at 11:22 am (Quote)
saying that mom had birth defects and shouldn’t have decided to have her own children to pass them on genetically.
Sadly, that was my first instinct as well.
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Details Reply:
January 5th, 2012 at 11:51 am (Quote)
I took it as “cleary you aren’t very bright since you know you ‘have genetic shortcomings’ and choose to get pregnant anyway.” I don’t know that he is saying that her mother should have aborted her, since he is insulting the 18 yr old at this particular moment and he did make referecne to suprises. But I’m pretty sure he would recommend aborting if this baby has similar problems, and I’m afraid to even go where Jane went with performing the amnio in a manner that would increase the risk of miscarriage. Extra scary since that would be even before he got the results. So he could be murdering a perfectly healthy baby. That is pretty twisted. Especially if you take a moment to think about how he might justify that to himself when the test results come back normal but the baby is already dead. I didn’t want to say anything because you just never know what will be in the pink link. But I guess it is not coming. Maybe this doctor would have been nicer to an older mom with the same birth defects but a stable marriage and a solid career because clearly this doctor also has some issues with her age and assumed behavior. Either way he is a piece of trash.
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I think the site posted the context a little off base. He recommended an amnio because of the birth defects that i have, which are NOT genetic based (apparently he was too dumb to know that). Once i informed him that i was well aware that an amnio would not show the defects should my child even have it too, because they are physical defects, not genetic (0.5% higher chance than the rest of the population of my child having it too). Then he went off saying that he wanted an amnio anyway because i “CLEARLY” wasn’t bright (pregnant at 18) and what he’s seen girls my age do. I switched Dr.’s and filed a complaint with NYS medical board after that. My son is now 5, happy, healthy, and his father and i have been happily together for 7yrs, married for 3yrs. Basically the Dr.’s ego got hurt that an 18yr old pregnant girl had more medical knowledge than him in a situation.
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Jane Reply:
January 29th, 2012 at 9:18 am (Quote)
Trish, you rock! That’s awesome that you filed a complaint with the state medical board and ditched this doctor.
I have found that oftentimes (because of the internet) many people have greater in-depth knowledge than their doctors of all the facets of their own conditions. If a doctor cannot handle that, then a doctor shouldn’t be working in the Information Age. Mature doctors, good doctors, know that an informed patient is much more likely to have a great outcome.
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Trish Reply:
January 29th, 2012 at 7:08 pm (Quote)
Thank you, it just really threw me off that he suggested an amnio because i have a facial deformity (cleft pallat) which for the last few decades has been widely medically considered a non-genetic defect. Then insulted me ensinuating i was just some run of the mill pregnant teen idiot when i informed him that i was well aware an amnio was in no way needed.
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Also, the Dr. i ended up switching to was appauled by what my first Dr. had said and done. At 19weeks i was scheduled for a level-2 sonogram, which showed in perfect detail that my son did not have any of my physical defects. No amnio needed.
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Add Your Comment.
NOT VERY BRIGHT???
There are no words. >:(
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