Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Apr
16
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…The Doctor Is Tired Of Hearing You Scream…”
“We’ve asked the anesthesiologist to stay an hour past her shift so that we can get you the epidural. The doctor is tired of hearing you scream now. – L&D Nurse to mother in labor.
There are 30 comments to this post.
Alyson Miers had this to say,
Apr 16, 2012 @ 6:00 pm (Quote)
Again: a woman should not have to get a needle in her spine to make someone else feel better.
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Captain Kirk: Ensign Jane, tactical analysis?
Ensign Jane: Certainly, Captain!
1) Make the mother feel guilt. This poor anesthesiologist is staying an HOUR late at her job! And all because of HER! She’d better give in and get the needle in the spine, otherwise it will have all been in vain!
2) Make the mother feel embarrassment. Act as if no doctor on earth ever listened to such terrible carryings-on. Make her think she sounds weak and everyone knows it.
Oh, and best of all?
The doctor is actually there in the hospital> Really?
But apparently we’re led to believe the doctor doesn’t have the backbone to tell the woman s/he is tired of hearing her scream. :-b And that’s tactic #3: The woman should stifle her own feelings so the doctor won’t be put out and have to deal with her personally.
I hope this didn’t work on the OP.
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Wren Reply:
April 16th, 2012 at 7:22 pm (Quote)
I really want Ensign Jane as a phone app that I can take to all appointments, for when I’m fuming too loudly to analyse clearly like this.
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SuzyHomemaker Reply:
April 16th, 2012 at 11:27 pm (Quote)
I second that!
i-phone doesn’t make a Jane-app, but they should!
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If mom is screaming and not just vocalizing, I’d bet anything it is because she isn’t able to do what her body wants to and/or because non-pharmacologic pain relievers (tub, birth ball, doula) aren’t available. So instead of pulling the guilt card (can’t believe they didn’t pull the dead baby card) and “making” her take an epidural, how about just being supportive and helping her follow her body.
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Or maybe mom is just in transition and the nurse is being an a$$ about it. And I doubt the DOCTOR was the one who objected to the screaming, so many L&D nurses just prefer to have a quiet, “good” patient who stays in bed and takes the epidural as soon as they get at the hospital…
There are cases in which if the mother is in too much pain and not able to cope it can keep her from dilating, and in these cases an epidural is totally indicated, but I highly doubt this was the scenario here.
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Himmel, this one leaves me greatly saddened. Labor varies from woman to woman. Some women need to just outright scream in order to cope. (Not saying this woman was screaming, either! Oftentimes I think hospital staff considers anything over a mild moan to be a scream.) A woman should be allowed to make whatever noise needs to be made! Some women literally “scream a baby down!” Again, it’s a matter of the staff trying to make birth a one size fits all kind of thing. ::sigh:: I’d say more but nobody could sum it up better than Jane already has!
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This one was mine as well. I had been pitted within 3 hours of my water breaking at home and they started it at high levels, upped it by 2 every half hour and refused to let me labor anywhere but my bed. After 7 hours of pit, being confined like a prisoner with no relief I have no idea if I was screaming but I know I wasn’t being quiet either. I had been begging for the epidural for about 5 hours at this point but the doctor and nurses (I had 8 different nurses in 13 hours and I think we were on the 6th nurse at this point) weren’t helping in any way. I took the epidural but I felt horribly guilty about making this woman stay when she didn’t want to. It also didn’t work fully but I didn’t want to make her stay longer and it was better than before so I just said it would be fine.
I felt like they all hated me, not that any stopped to talk to me. They’d come in, get my vitals, up my pitocin and disappear. It’s no wonder we started the Wall of Shame, adding each new nurses name and rating them.
I have to add, THANK YOU to all you ladies who have commented and posted on this site. I just had my second baby on Thursday morning and it wasn’t until halfway through this pregnancy that I really started to understand exactly how wrong my first labor was. I knew I was treated badly and wrote a letter telling them so, but I never knew exactly how bad it really was. This time around, after doing tons of research, reading every single post and comment on here, I knew what I wanted. It didn’t quite work out like I planned, but it was about a million times better this time around.
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Tee Reply:
April 16th, 2012 at 9:40 pm (Quote)
Ach, Linda! I am so, so, sorry that you mistreated like that the first time around. Like I said in my above comment, it saddens me hear of a woman being so stifled during what can… and SHOULD… be a wonderful experience. What happened to you was horrible and I’d go as far as to say that it was dangerous.
I’m SO GLAD that this site encouraged you to go for a different experience the second time around! Congratulations on your new baby! Do you have a son or daughter? (If you don’t mind me asking, of course!)
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Jenny Islander Reply:
April 17th, 2012 at 2:37 am (Quote)
Why the hell so much pit? And why start it a mere three hours after your water broke? If their thinking was “Cerebrospinal = brainy thing not good,” wouldn’t they want you to have a quiet, relaxed labor, keeping your blood pressure down as much as possible, and with as little strain as possible?
Oh, right, the OB’s only job is to get the baby out, and whatever happens to the mother short of death is just collateral damage. Silly me.
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Jane Reply:
April 17th, 2012 at 3:34 am (Quote)
So wait, you had been asking for an epidural for five hours, and then the nurse comes in and says it’s your fault the anesthesiologist will have to stay an hour late?
Perhaps it was the nurse’s fault that the anesthesiologist hadn’t gone home four hours earlier…?
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Jane Reply:
April 17th, 2012 at 5:20 am (Quote)
Linda, I just realized something — the nurse said “The doctor is tired of hearing you scream *now*”? As in, for five hours they denied you an epidural because the doctor *wasn’t* tired of hearing you scream?
I can’t figure out another reason for the “now” at the end of the sentence.
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Details Reply:
April 17th, 2012 at 5:30 am (Quote)
What the &#*@ kind of &^@%)%# hospital with a maternity ward or an emergency room doesn’t have 24 hour anethesiology available!?! I’m supposed to seriously believe that if this anethesilogolgist goes home that there won’t be another one on site until moring!?! And what the $^@* are they going to do when the woman in the next room suddenly experiences placental abruption at 2 am? You call yourself a hospital? And homebirth is unsafe because why again!?!
Linda, I’m very sorry that even one person like this exists in the world and that you were subjected to this treatment. These people are disgusting!
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Jen Reply:
April 18th, 2012 at 8:04 am (Quote)
In my small city, the two local hospitals do not have anesthesiologists on staff 24/7. At night and on weekends, they have to be paged from off-site. During my second birth, it took the anesthesiologist over an hour to show up (which was fine with me since I hadn’t asked for an epidural, but the nurse paged him anyway and then screamed at me when I refused it). Doesn’t instill a lot of confidence for their emergency preparedness.
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Alyson Miers Reply:
April 17th, 2012 at 6:15 am (Quote)
You were begging for the epidural — point 1 against the hospital. If a patient has to beg, they’re doing something wrong. They failed to get you the epidural for 5 hours — point 2 against. They have a patient who WANTS the interventions they have to offer, and they don’t accommodate her? WTH? And then the nurse acts like they’re only giving you what you wanted in the first place because you’re annoying the doctor? Really?
I won’t even get started on how they mismanaged your labor in the first place with all that Pit.
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Maybe he should get some ear plugs then.
OR the sOB could come in and do his job by trying to find out why the terrible pain came on so fast. Maybe it was the psychotic amount of pitocin causing unnaturally epic contractions?
My NURSE turned the pit down when she saw how hard the contractions were. She said it wasn’t good for my body or my baby to have such powerful contractions so close together. Maybe the OB missed that day in school?
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Add Your Comment.
Tired of screaming? Then allow mothers to be up and about during labor! Let them soak in a bath, let them eat, let them have their support people around her.
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Dreamy Reply:
April 16th, 2012 at 5:58 pm Dreamy(Quote)
My guess is the mom was feeling and coping fine, just vocalizing.
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Bonita Reply:
April 16th, 2012 at 6:50 pm Bonita(Quote)
I very highly doubt this woman was absolutely screaming. I am a LOUD laborer. I yell, I shout, I moan but screaming would be something I would do if something were terribly wrong, like a babyfoot just came out of my bellybutton.
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Cat Reply:
April 17th, 2012 at 12:37 pm Cat(Quote)
I’m a screamer. I screamed a LOT in labor. It was how i was dealing with it. It worked well for me. My labor was only 5.5 hours and I think it would have been faster(with more tearing) if I hadn’t been screaming like I had. Once my midwife came back and told me to make lower noises things went even faster. :/
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