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All The Things Women Wish They’d Said to Doctors, Nurses & Midwives

Sat, 12/03/2011 - 23:29
Submitted by Jessica Kramer

Since my last post about finding our voices as women I’ve seen several articles, blog posts and Facebook comments, along with a couple personal experiences related to this subject. So much so I feel like I need to do a series of posts about this subject.

There’s another blogger in the blogosphere who calls herself The Feminist Breeder. Her first birth was a cesarean, her second birth was a vaginal birth (known as a VBAC – Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) in the hospital, and her third was a vaginal homebirth. This week she wrote a post called “Things I Would Say to the Hospital Staff If I Saw Them Today…” This post highlights some of the unsupportive things various care providers said and did during her births and what she would have said had she been able to speak up at the time. (You can read her post here)

A friend of mine, Deirdre McLary, a doula, lactation consultant and childbirth educator commented that when she was laboring with her first baby which ended in cesarean, the nurse said, "Come on, a big gal like you ought to be able to push a baby out.” Deirdre would now like to have said to her “GFY”.

I see this all the time – care providers making comments to women about their bodies, their ability to birth vaginally (or not, as the case may be – given our country’s steadily rising cesarean rate, currently at 33%), their labor and their behavior that have deep impressions on women. In those moments it’s rare that we are able to cultivate the strength of voice and spirit to respond to these unsavory and unsupportive comments.

I’d love to see a forum open up for all the things women wish they’d said to doctors, nurses and midwives in labor or in obstetric or gynecologic care. I’d love to see women start voicing the things they wish they’d said to people in their lives whom they are or were close to who’ve made critical and unkind comments about their bodies, their sexuality, their vulvas, their orgasms, their voices.

I loved Betty’s comment on my last post that the first time she spoke up about her clit being touched too hard, her voice came out so loud it shocked even her. Maybe a good beginning for us learning to speak up to our care providers during health care and birth is practicing saying the things that you feel or felt inside but never had the opportunity to voice. Maybe it’s a process of practicing saying it out loud, then out loud with someone to listen so we start discovering that it’s okay to speak up on behalf of our own body and experience. In Betty’s case, it didn’t resolve things in that moment and with that partner, but it certainly was a great start to Betty becoming a positive voice for all of us. Even the stumbles in using our voices can lead us to great places.

Liberating Birth
http://www.resourcebirth.com/index.html

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Your mother must be proud...

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 00:44
HeatherB (not verified)

The first doctor I went to after finding out that I was pregnant asked if my partner and I were married. When I said "no" he commented "That must make your mother proud". He said a lot of other things too and refused to prescribe me anti nausea medication telling me it was just something that I had to "be strong and manage". We left his office feeling utterly horrified and never went back. If I had my chance again I'm not sure what I'd say to be honest, but it would be something more than the passive, doctor/authority patient/submissive role that I took on.

To the midwife who’s first thing she said to me was that I couldn't possibly be in labour because I was feeling the cold in the room (after 2 night without sleep and 48 hours of contractions) and then found I was 9 cm’s dilated when she decided to examine me AS AN AFTERTHOUGHT (she had already walked out of the room to go and get the aesthetician for my epidural ONLY because my blood pressure was starting to go up) I would definitely say “fuck you”. In fact, I think I was about to except I was mid contraction. My partner said he thought I was going to kill her from the look on my face.

To the doctor who said to me that he “knew” I’d be asking for the morning after pill when he saw me in the waiting room, then prescribed the least effective option and tried to coerce me into going onto the pill I would say “You need to learn to listen and ask questions my
friend”.

And these are just a few.

I accept that doctors are necessary and that there are good, caring, patient doctors that treat their patients as real people. I understand that they have to deal with failing healthcare systems, new diseases, drugs and disorders etc, all of which make their jobs difficult. All I’m asking for is a little less arrogance, a little more humility and a LOT more respect

I've actually got to say I have no complaints.

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 01:32
Heylin

My biggest complaint is that when I was laboring with my first child, I was getting a pitocin drip and had a uterine monitor on. The monitor was on correctly so the nurses were kind of poo pooing my statements that I was having strong contractions. When they finally fixed the monitor and noticed the contractions, she said something along the lines of how strong they were and I was like, "No shit Sherlock!" My subsequent births were much nicer and the nurses I had were very professional and caring (as was my doctor). I did speak up for myself though in a polite yet firm way. If I had to do it again, I'd go to the same doctor and same hospital.

Dang Heather, they sound horrible!

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 21:15
Heylin

My heart goes out to you. Sometimes it seems that a person has to literally go shopping for the best health care provider. I hope you now have a good provider.

Agree..

Sun, 12/04/2011 - 22:30
MissM7 (not verified)

I 100% agree with speaking up and being your own best advocate. We need to view the relationship with our healthcare providers as a parntership, not a dictatorship. Ideally, we would all be able to choose the best providers, but often insurance and finances dictate who we can go to. One odd thing I have experienced is that women's health providers tend to treat their patients like s*&t. Especially the nurses! I have run into so many gyn nurses with superiority complexes and dismissive attitudes. IF you don't like women...DON'T go into women's health!

The issues of being a heterosexual virgin and not a teenager

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 01:36
Anonymous11111 (not verified)

To the ER doc, in ironically a catholic hospital, who did not believe me that I had never had sex because "everyone has sex by the time they are 22" and then used a speculum that is used for women that have already had children because she was too lazy to find a small one. I would say "I hope you have a good lawyer, because I'm calling the police and having you charged with assault for what you did to me." To the same ER doc, who misread the ultrasound and who said that the pain wasn't that bad when I had a tumour the size of an orange twisting on my ovary and cutting off the blood supply, "be grateful that my insurance company insisted I see another doctor the next day, because your mistake could have cost me my fertility."

When I was 25, to another ER doc that refused intially to prescribe a strong anti-nausea because I was pregnant and didn't have severe food poisoning despite me explaining over and over again that I couldn't be preganant because I had never had sex, I would say "Get me another doctor, I don't have time to deal a doctor that allows his own preconceived notions to interfere in providing good care" and then I would have thrown up all over him to help reinforce the point.

At 27, to the ultrasound tech that wanted to give me a vaginal ultrasound and when I explained that I couldn't because I hadn't had sex asked "what was wrong with me", I would say "Nothing, what's wrong with you that you can't understand that people make different life choices?"

At 34, to the psychologist that said that I didn't have depression and just needed to have sex, I would say "Go to hell!", instead I left crying, became suicidal and ended up on medical leave.

Fortunately, I have finally found a fantastic gynecologist, psychiatrist and psychologist that go above and beyond to understand my cultural paradigm, and how it relates to my sexuality and health conditions.

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