Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Feb
15
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“I Need To Check To Make Sure Your Legs Still Work.”
“I need to check to make sure your legs still work.” – L&D Nurse to mother 6 hours after an unmedicated birth. The mother was standing when the nurse entered the room.
There are 35 comments to this post.
Because childbirth naturally causes the legs to fail, and it has nothing to do with all those drugs they push.
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Kit Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 1:40 pm (Quote)
Not arguing, just saying – my last birth did cause my legs to fail and I had no medications whatsoever. But I pushed in a squat, and by the end my muscles absolutely gave out. I had nothing left. My husband and a nurse physically picked me up and put me on the bed because I was unable to move under my own power. BUT, it only took about 10-15 minutes for me to have feeling/control again. I did feel like I had been hit by a truck for the next couple of hours, but I was up and walking around by lunchtime 3 hours later.
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road2vba2c had this to say,
Feb 15, 2012 @ 2:33 pm (Quote)
I made your job easy. You’re welcome. Now leave so I can rest.
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That’s funny, after my unmedicated birth I immediately (actually, now that I think about it, it may have been an hour later. Time was flying) got up and went to the bathroom, to clean myself up and put on my own clothes. No one asked me if my legs still worked. It seems like a WTF, to me.
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Mama Wrench had this to say,
Feb 15, 2012 @ 2:56 pm (Quote)
I had an epidural and was still standing an hour after birth and walked to the bathroom on my own. 6 hours? Good lord, how incompetent does she think the anesthesiologist was?
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Sugaryfun Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 3:27 pm (Quote)
I had an epidural too and one of my feet actually wasn’t working properly for about 24 hours after the birth (pins and needles that took a long time to go away, had to keep dragging that leg when I walked- no lasting damage thankfully), so 6 hours makes sense to me. It’s the fact that the OP had an unmedicated birth that makes the comment silly.
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Heather P Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 4:46 pm (Quote)
There was no anesthesiologist. No epidural at all.
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Mama Wrench Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 6:40 pm (Quote)
I got that, but the nurse obviously didn’t read the chart and assumed Mom had an epi.
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Emily D. Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 7:13 pm (Quote)
Yeah, my mom was up and walking around and hour and a half after her (scheduled, planned) cesarean with my brother. It was her third, granted, but she loves telling how the doctor took her to visit all the teenage mothers in the ward who were lying around feeling sorry for themselves days after their uncomplicated births. (I was born in inner city Chicago.) Three hours after my little brother was born, I remember she walked me down the hall and lifted me up (I was 4 and a half) to look in the window and see him in the nursery, because I was way too short to see, and a nurse came running at full speed down the hallway yelling at her to put me down. My mom was apologetic, then gave the nurse a tongue-lashing about how there wasn’t a single window low enough for her girls to see their new brother, and the nurse ended up holding me up while my mother stood there with her arms crossed and a smug look on her face. 
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Jennifer at Organic Baby University had this to say,
Feb 15, 2012 @ 3:16 pm (Quote)
It is so dumb it is silly
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Wow, the nurse has one of those easy buttons in the Staples commercials. Seriously, this nurse has to be related to the 911 operator trying to give CPR instructions to my mom when my great-grandmother fell and broke her hip who was screaming so loud you could hear her inside next door. My mother finally asked her if she could hear the screaming, and then said “if she’s screaming, then she can breathe.”
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Mandie Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 12:04 pm (Quote)
Seriously? why don’t they release Those 911 calls! That’s funny! I get it that people call in for stupid stuff, but I think this should be released too! (for my own entertainment)
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Bazile Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 12:32 pm (Quote)
I wish I was making this up, but unfortunately this is one of those so stupid you can’t make it up situations. Granny fell New Year’s Day 2006, and luckily my parents lived (she passed away this past August) next door. My mom called 911 since it was obvious that she had done something to her hip since her entire leg was at an odd angle. According to my mom, the woman sounded like she was reading off a script and couldn’t get past the “Step 1: Is patient breathing? Yes, no CPR necessary. No, continue to step 2.” Mom said she wished she could of just slapped the woman because she was delaying putting in the ambulance request while Granny was going into shock trying to tell her how to do chest compressions. Since they live in an extremely rural (as in quite possibly more hogs than people in the county) area of Eastern North Carolina might not have had the highest caliber of operator, or since it was New Year’s Day she was just hung-over and maybe she wasn’t so dumb normally. It’s funny now in it’s ridiculousness, and I could seriously see one of those bad comedy shows having a field day reenacting it.
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with my first the nurse came a few hours after i gave birth to take me to the bathroom… and i almost passed out on the way.. (I tore really bad and lost lots of blood) with the second I was up going to the bathroom less than 20 minutes after giving birth… ( I wanted the IV out and they told me I could get it out when I went pee sooo… I downed water like crazy )
my second birth was with midwives other than the transfer for pit … I had the baby at 2 am and went home around 10 am … and by 3 pm I was over at the neighbors showing him off… it was summer so they were out on the porch….
but unless they broke my legs they worked…and noone came to make sure they worked
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With my mom she didn’t need the nurses to go to the bathroom because her legs didn’t work. She needed them because she passed out on the toilet (where her visiting family found her). I would understand if the nurse wanted to walk her to the bathroom to make sure she made it there and back, but it’s obvious this mom’s legs are working.
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Hmm, does this hospital have such a high c-section rate that post operative care is now standard for everyone? Yay, I’ve had a few nurses show up to see how I was able to walk and get me to the bathroom. Couldn’t tell you how long it took, but I can tell you they came sooner and sooner after each c-section. I remember somebody saying it was important to get you up on your feet in under 12 hours.
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This was me. I had Nurse Awesome there for the birth. She helped me get up to go to the bathroom immediately after the birth. I’m sure it was in my notes that I had already been up. I had NOT had an epidural for the birth and had even walked down the hallway to pour myself orange juice from the kitchenette.
Six hours after the birth I was standing when Nurse Observant walked in. Never seen her before and the shift change had not happened yet. She told me to get in bed because she needed to examine me. Okay, I was up for that. I was on an extreme birth high and felt great. She couldn’t find my fundus and poked me really hard not finding it. (Nurse Awesome found it later)
Then she started making me wiggle my toes and poking my legs. I asked her if this was really neccesary. Then she said she needed to make sure my legs still worked. I was kind of dumbstruck by the stupidity of it.
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Details Reply:
February 16th, 2012 at 6:21 am (Quote)
Poking and wiggling? Really? I don’t remember any leg poking after any of my surgeries and I had one general, one spinal and one epidural. We will have to make up a prize for your most observant nurse. She really takes the cake. That is it we will make up a golden cake with a piece missing in her honor! Maybe served on a clipboard with a little check list on it.
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Jadzia@Toddlerisms had this to say,
Feb 16, 2012 @ 3:04 am (Quote)
“Nurse Observant, I think we need to check to make sure your eyes still work.”
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After my last one, I had been up and gone for a wee, then because my BSL dropped (type 1 diabetic) I went back to bed and was kept in the delivery unit for a bit. Shift change happened, then new nurse said to me “I need you to get on this pan and empty your bladder, I need to know its still working before I can send you to the ward.” Apparently nursing notes stating “pt has voided in toilet post-birthing” were insufficient, as was me TELLING her I had been to the toilet, no she needed to *watch*.
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CNicole had this to say,
Feb 16, 2012 @ 8:04 am (Quote)
Did she try to remove your epidural catheter too? I know you said you had an unmedicated birth, and the chart did too, but since she was doing what sounds like a post-epidural check lisk, that could be on it too.
One of my post partum nurses came in to remove mine and was surprised there wasn’t one. True, I did have a cesarean so not having one was unusual (I got a spinal in the OR) But seriously how hard is it to check the chart?
Glad to hear you had at least one good nurse too (the other needs to take some lessons from her)
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Mine tried to remove my catheter, and, when I told her I hadn’t had one, was very confused. I told her I’d had an unmedicated birth and she said, “Oh, I’ve never seen one of those. I don’t even know what the protocol is after that kind of birth. I’ll have to go check.”
At least she admitted her lack of knowledge and seemed interested in rectifying it.
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*smacks in the head* Sorry, was trying to see if I could get a reaction since your brain clearly isn’t working and I thought that might jar the autopilot loose.
Granted, I’ve done some things in this “Did you think that through?” category. This is pretty funny in my book, but it really makes you just shake your head in disbelief.
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Morgaine had this to say,
Feb 16, 2012 @ 11:56 am (Quote)
@Lora, I am totally ok with someone not knowing, as long as they go find out. We all have to learn somehow! 
I had a csection, and no one ever asked me if my legs still “worked”. They did put little pulsating cuff thingies on them though, so I didnt get blood clots.
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My oldest son (who is working toward a TKD black belt) recommends kicking her in the face. “Yep, looks like… let me check the other one.”
Could be a *bit* ambitious right after the birth… but *oh* so much fun… don’t you think?
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Mary Reply:
February 15th, 2012 at 4:49 pm Mary(Quote)
The face might be a bit ambitious, but a swift kick in the ass would probably be totally doable…
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