Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Dec
19
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“It’s Okay Dear, You Just Have A Bladder Infection. Those Pains You’re Feeling Aren’t Contractions…”
“It’s okay dear, you just have a bladder infection. Those pains you’re feeling aren’t contractions, our monitors would have picked that up if they were. It’s just pain from the infection and because you’re dehydrated. You need to go home, drink more fluids and rest.” – L&D nurse to mother who came to the hospital at 24 weeks in labor, but was in the process of being sent home.
There are 12 comments to this post.
well, there’s a mixed message to say the least. On the one hand, the MOD says women need to know the signs of premature labor, which can sometimes be stopped if meds are given in time. Yet when a woman actually pays attention and gets to the hospital, the medical professionals take the possible signs of premature labor lightly. The prematurity rates are not going to go down if this is any indication of how women are treated when they actually try to follow what they’re being told in PSAs from the MOD.
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OP, i hope someone listened eventually and they were able to hold off labour.
i had something similar happen at 28 weeks, but the nurses took my word for what i was feeling, and explained that it can be harder for the machine to pick up contractions pre-term anyway.
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I’ve been very blessed to never have had a bladder infection in my life, so I might be wrong on this one. But wouldn’t pain from the bladder be something continuous, whereas contractions are intermittent?
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Sheva Reply:
December 19th, 2012 at 9:24 am (Quote)
Yes, and it hurts like heck in the urethra, too, not just the bladder. This nurse is stupid.
Sorry, all the nurses out there, including my lovely sister.
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Jane Reply:
December 19th, 2012 at 12:01 pm (Quote)
Moreover, a bladder infection would show bacteria or blood in the urine, and many times it would produce burning on urination.
I’ve had a bladder infection that did cause lower abdominal and back pain. It didn’t radiate and it wasn’t intermittent. The pain certainly didn’t come every five minutes the way a contraction would.
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thats funny (as in weird that the nurse doesnt know this stuff, not haha) because of a number of things
an untreated infection is a known cause of premature labour. (anecdote, if i were to ask those of my friends who have had premature labour and subsequent premature birth, 80% would say undiagnosed or untreated infection, that being bladder or urinary tract infections)
at 24 weeks the uterus is just barely above the belly button so picking up contractions on a ctg is sketchy at best
if she has a bladder infection and is dehydrated (as the nurse is suggesting) she should be admitted and given fluids and antibiotics not sent home to “drink more fluids and rest” the only good thing about that advice is bedrest is a good idea
labour pains do not feel like a bladder infection. if i was to compare it to any illness it would be gastro, which funnily enough can also be a cause of preterm labour if not handled correctly
and to top it off 24 weeks only just barely brushes the bracket for “viable birth” so if a woman says she is having contractions everything should be done in human power to keep that baby in!
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This one is mine… and sadly, no, our daughter wasn’t fine. Ironically, this was posted exactly 13 years to the day this this happened. I was actually in labor. I was 24 weeks pregnant and had been suffering severe morning sickness the entire pregnancy. I knew something was wrong and I was having contractions, but they insisted I wasn’t. Well, it *was* my first pregnancy, but I’d had bladder infections before, and I know darn well they don’t come with uterine cramping in regular intervals like that. They were labor contractions and I knew it, but nobody was listening to me. At 24 weeks, why would they?
I’d been at the hospital for several hours and was essentially ignored – they’d seen me there several times over previous weeks because of the retching issues I’d been having and I guess assumed that’s why I was there again, even though I told them I thought I was having contractions. Maybe they thought I was nuts or hysterical… they were definitely condescending. My husband and I walked to the elevator to leave when my water broke. I was promptly brought back to a bed and in a flurry of activity told I was, in fact, in premature labor after all and there was nothing they could do to stop it. I delivered our daughter less than 10 minutes later. Sadly, this occurred at a hospital with no ability to care for a preemie and the life flight that could have taken us to another hospital had left about 20 minutes prior, and our little girl, who was completely healthy for her gestational age, passed away about an hour later because the hospital staff couldn’t do anything for us.
My nurse midwife and my OB were furious over how it was handled… the OB was out of town (it was less than a week before Christmas). They told my midwife (a nurse practitioner who is the OB’s business partner) was told I was fine, not laboring and just had a bladder infection. It wasn’t until my husband called her directly to tell her that my water broke that she knew what was happening. She was spitting angry when she got to the hospital, for sure. This lady had been my rock keeping me sane up until then because I’d been so sick. She cried with us, and both she and the OB attended the baby’s funeral. And, while they won’t admit it… I’m positive they paid for the cometary and funeral expenses, too. The mortuary just told us that the services were donated by “donors” who wanted to remain anonymous. But, my husband and I are sure it was them.
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Hospital brochure: :Remember, ladies, that hospital birth is the only responsible option because if something goes wrong, you’ll need the expertise of the highly-trained hospital staff to analyze your symptoms and determine the best possible method of treatment! Home is not the place to be in an emergency!”
24 weeks later: “Go home, dear. The monitors say you’re not in labor.”
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OP: I hope your baby was okay.
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