Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
May
28
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…You’re Too Short…”
“I’d recommend you get an induction at 39 weeks, but honestly, I wouldn’t even bother with a vaginal delivery. You’re too short. You’d end up having a cesarean section anyway, between that and the baby’s size.” – Perinatologist to 4’11″ mother, whose husband is 5’3.”
There are 54 comments to this post.
4’11″ here, two babies of average size vaginally just fine(40+3 and 38+2 weeks). Hubby is 5’4″, and peds seem amazed that our kids are small but healthy (one even diagnosed as FTT, even hitting all milestones and being consistent on the growth curve at 3rd%)
[Reply]
You’re either too short, too fat, or have red hair, so you can’t possibly give birth the way mother nature intended (which BTW is not with an induction at 39 weeks). We are all doomed, I tell you!
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
May 28th, 2012 at 4:40 pm (Quote)
You cannot give birth on your feet,
You cannot give birth on a seat.
You cannot give birth if you’re tall,
You cannot give birth if you’re small.
You cannot give birth here or there,
You cannot give birth anywhere!
We do not like your natural birth.
We do not like it on this Earth.
[Reply]
Jane Reply:
May 29th, 2012 at 4:18 am (Quote)
Can I labor in the bath?
May I walk my garden path?
You must not labor in a bath.
You must not walk a garden path.
You must not labor on your head.
Please only labor in a bed.
Please do not try to take a drink
Please do not tell us what you think.
We do not like your natural birth.
We do not want it on this earth.
[Reply]
Dee the Doula Reply:
May 29th, 2012 at 8:11 am (Quote)
This is so SAD, but so funny!!! It’s point on!!
[Reply]
Heidi Reply:
May 29th, 2012 at 5:25 am (Quote)
Your poem caught my 8 year old daughter’s eye. (I don’t normally look at this site when she’s around, for understandable reasons.) I explained the original quote, read the poem, showed her a picture of her 4’11″ great-grandmother, and said, “Wouldn’t it be silly to tell HER she’s too short to have a baby the natural way?”
Starting early…
[Reply]
Mandie Reply:
May 29th, 2012 at 7:44 am (Quote)
I totally share with my teen! She keeps saying how stupid the stuff is, sometimes she’s still off base as to why it’s dumb, but I hope our discussions help her future self be well informed!
[Reply]
Rachel T Reply:
May 29th, 2012 at 1:55 pm (Quote)
I’m prepping to tell my daughter about her great-grandmother who was about 4’11″ and had polio as a child that caused her a lifetime of hip problems. She managed to birth two perfectly healthy children, vaginally, 11 months apart, in the early 40′s. I’d love to ask this OB if they think medical science has regressed back to the pre-war era.
[Reply]
I’m going to chime in here also and say I’m 4’11″ and birthed a 8 and half pound baby easily (probably would have been even easier if I had been squatting). Honestly, I have told everyone I wouldn’t be surprised if my second (I’m currently pregnant) is 9lbs if I make it to full term.
This is a ridiculous attitude. You know after my daughter was born I had family members telling me she was so big I should have had a c section. WHY?
[Reply]
C.Pratt Reply:
May 28th, 2012 at 3:43 pm (Quote)
When I told a friend of mine who is a NICU nurse that our baby was measuring large, maybe on track to be 10lbs, he asked “so are you going to get a c-section?”
“Why?” I asked. He knew I had done home birth previously.
“Well, you don’t want to hurt yourself” he said.
Smarty pants that I am I popped off “Yeah, cuz getting cut open doesn’t hurt or anything!”
I think there is a perception that it is best to not even try for a natural birth because a big baby will have a harder time coming out. But even if I were to end up with a c-section for CPD, at least I could be reasonably assured my child was fully developed and ready to be born if I waited for labor to start before evicting. I will gladly endure labor AND an unplanned c-section for that piece of mind!
[Reply]
Kathryn Reply:
May 28th, 2012 at 8:43 pm (Quote)
Absolutely!
And besides, sometimes bigger babies are easier. My 9lb 2oz baby was easier than my 7lb 13oz baby. By a lot.
[Reply]
Jenny Islander had this to say,
May 28, 2012 @ 4:41 pm (Quote)
I know I often get torqued off by what I read here, but this one was just hilarious! And from a perinatologist, even! It’s like listening to Daffy Duck pull one of his classic zany cons!
Well, except for the part where the perinatologist just told somebody that they had to endure abdominal surgery, and put their baby at risk of prematurity, in order to solve a nonexistent problem.
[Reply]
Jespren had this to say,
May 28, 2012 @ 4:45 pm (Quote)
I used to know a son of a unique couple. Mom was a Pygmy, Dad was from a African plains tribe (I forget the name) but he was nearly 7ft. They had 10 kids, all healthy, natural births. I remember him saying how his dad picked his mom up to kiss her. I saw them once at a distance but never actually met them. Meanwhile my aunt, who can’t be over 4’10″ had 2 term births with a husband who was 6’6″ and Tongan (very big boned race) although I don’t believe either of my cousins was overly large at birth.
[Reply]
hmmm im 5’4″ my husband is 6’2″ i mangaged to birth my second fine, we actually thought he would be bigger than he was (7lb 14oz)my first was c section but my height was never mentioned as a factor. my grandmother is shorter than me buy at least an inch and she birthed all 4 of her children vaginally and i know my mother was over 9 pound. funny how its proven humans are taller than they were yet suddenly short people cant give birth…. if that were true wouldnt there be less short people?
[Reply]
C.Pratt Reply:
May 28th, 2012 at 6:07 pm (Quote)
The laws of evolution would suggest that yes.
I just read something recently that suggested that on average babies are actually only about half a pound heavier at birth today than they were 50 years ago. Does anyone else know where this was? I can’t seem to find it. I did, however, find this interesting diddy while googling: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423204575017471267586344.html
[Reply]
Excuse me! It isn’t about height it is about width and more accurately inner diameter. Let me put it another way, that wide load sign across my backside has an upside. It means babies can fit. None of my aunts ever had a problem and my problem was iatrogenic. Do you need to look that up? Now get away from me before I kick you in the shin with my tiny 5W foot.
[Reply]
Blue Reply:
May 28th, 2012 at 7:14 pm (Quote)
Even so, the vast majority of the time,mew grow babies that are the right size for our bodies to birth, and our pelvic bones are designed to open up when we are relaxed and birthing naturally and at our own pace. Not to mention, babies’ heads are designed to mold to fit through our pelvic bones. I am very narrow hipped, and yet I birthed a very large-headed baby boy a number of years ago. He fit just fine. And my grandmother, who was under 5 feet tall and also petite, birthed ten kids, and described it as easy, “except for the one who was breech – that one was a little uncomfortable”. We are made to give birth!
[Reply]
Details Reply:
May 29th, 2012 at 5:27 am (Quote)
Exactly, to suggest that a woman is too small before labor is presumputious and rude. To suggest that she is too small not because her hip bones are narrow in the pre-labor condition, but because her legs are short is nothing less than pure evil and clearly demostrates that the OB doesn’t know what he is talking about and doesn’t care to learn. The further they get away from the truth the less they care about science. There is no logic between short and CPD. You just can’t make the leap. If they wanted to make a connection they would be doing pelvis vs. baby’s shoulder width, but I’m afraid they would have to wait until labor to make the measurement of the mother’s pelivs and have much better equipment than current day U/S to measure the baby’s shoulders (Can’t measure the head since it molds. And can’t rely on a U/S since weight estimates can be offf +/- 2 lbs.) So they might as well relax and have mom labor in an open position rather with her weight on her tailbone pressing it into the birth canal.
[Reply]
JulietsButterfly had this to say,
May 28, 2012 @ 6:21 pm (Quote)
Hmmm, so how did I, a 5′ even woman, give birth to an 8lb 12oz little girl about 8 years ago? Vaginal delivery. Had no problem with my son, though he was smaller. I’m not worried about this third. I have these huge hips for a reason, right?
Funny thing is I have a friend who’s a good foot taller than me and her husband is a few inches taller than her, and she had a c/s for her first who was only 2oz more than mine.
Size is so irrelevant. My grandma is shorter than me, had 9 kids, all vaginal deliveries, and some of them were past 8.5lbs and nearing 9lbs.
[Reply]
5’1 (on a good day) and my second VBAC baby was 22in and 10lb 6oz. Yes, she was over 1/3 my height at birth.
I am sure I will be told next time how it was all my fault because I must have had “undiagnosed GD” (I didn’t) and how if “they” had known then “they” wouldn’t have let me “try” but they can kiss my fanny.
[Reply]
This is mine. I was seeing a high risk OB along with my regular OB because I had preterm labor and bleeding. He was just checking measurements and things for us, really. Anyway, I delivered my son two weeks ago after almost twenty four hours of labor with a four hour pushing stage…vaginally. 
My OB made the weirdest face when I told her what this high risk OB told me, then said that doctor was obviously full of it. She did suggest a section at the end of my labor because I was exhausted and my BP kept going insane, but we got him out. She was my biggest cheerleader throughout that pushing stage, let me tell you!
I am going to send a birth announcement to this high risk OB with a note on the back that I had him vaginally. O:-) Suck it!
[Reply]
Kathryn Reply:
May 28th, 2012 at 8:51 pm (Quote)
I am so glad to hear that you had a successful vaginal birth! Congratulations to you! Also, sounds like your OB was pretty awesome…even if this one was an idiot.
[Reply]
E Reply:
May 28th, 2012 at 10:01 pm (Quote)
Yeah, she is really fantastic. I wish all OBs were like her, because a good lot of ‘em seem like they need a good thwack on the head with a baseball bat. She uses interventions if all else fails, suggests surgery only if there is an actual need for it, etc.
My son was 7lb 10oz, which shocked everyone. He had a major cone head! He’s just a skinny baby. When I was pushing my doctor kept yelling that I was a rock star, her hero, I was awesome. It was so funny. She cried when he finally came out!
[Reply]
Another 5′ mama here.
Husband is 6’2″ and none of our kids have been over 8 lbs at birth. Hubby was not over 8 pounds at birth either.
My largest baby was #1 at 7 lb 15 oz.
Ironically my smallest baby was born via emergency c-section at 5 lb 12 oz. I certainly could have pushed him out no problem, but he was in severe distress and we couldn’t wait that long! He’s made up for lost time though, and at 9 months he’s already outgrowing 12 month size clothes.
Height is not an indicator of the inner diameter of a pelvis, nor of how elastic the ligaments will prove to be after nine months or marinating in elastin and all the other pregnancy hormones!
[Reply]
Wait, what?
Oh, I get it. After coming out, baby slides down my legs and is launched across the room (where the OB will catch, and thus save, him). If my legs aren’t long enough, the cord will act as a bungee cord and yank him back up inside of me!
No? Oh. Then this is just dumb…again. 
[Reply]
SuzyHomemaker had this to say,
May 29, 2012 @ 6:31 am (Quote)
I was also told that I was too short by a doctor while pregnant but for completely different reasons:
4 pregnancies (2 miscarriages, 2 live births)- and all 4 pregnancies, I developed asthma while in the first trimester, only to stop having asthmatic symptoms as soon as I was no longer pregnant.
My 4th pregnancy, I developed asthma again for the 4th time and being that I had been through it before, I knew what was going on and went ahead to explain the situation to my family practitioner.
My doctor told me that the reason I develop asthma every pregnancy is because I’m too short to be having babies.
I’m 5 foot tall- there are a great many women who are 5 feet tall who have healthy pregnancies and never develop asthma.
But this doctor was convinced the reason I couldn’t breathe properly while pregnant was because I was too short, so the baby had no where to go except to push up into my lungs…
Forget the fact that I developed asthma when I was only 7/8 weeks pregnant at which point the baby was barely big enough to be pushing on much of anything.
[Reply]
Hmmm. My midwife delievered an 11 lb baby to a 5′ tall woman. No problems. I love that story. That might be part of the reason I went with her.
Seriously, if short women couldn’t give birth vaginally, the human race would be a lot smaller than it is due to all the short women dying in labor.
[Reply]
Claire had this to say,
Jun 3, 2012 @ 2:43 pm (Quote)
My mother is 5 feet tall and tiny. My father is 6’2.5″. My mother had three children at home with varying weights 6lbs, 8lbs & 9lbs. We are now 5’6″, 5’10″ and 6’3″. Interesting how our birth weights corresponded to our height variance as adults lol!
[Reply]
Kristen P. had this to say,
Jun 7, 2012 @ 10:16 am (Quote)
My aunt is 5 feet tall and maybe 95 lbs wet. She has had 5 babies vaginally, the smallest was a little over 8 lbs, and the biggest was 12 lbs. 1 oz.
[Reply]
Add Your Comment.
Funny how my 5′ self gave birth to a 9lb baby for my 3rd VBAC. Baby’s dad is 6’8″. Guess that extra inch makes a huge difference. Except, you know, for all those Pygmy women with 8lb babies.
[Reply]