Woman Labors in Hospital Bathroom After Doctors Send Her Home
When my water broke at 4 a.m. a week before my due date, I called my OB right away.
“Are you sure it broke?” she asked.
“Uhhhh, yeah. Pretty sure.”
“I just saw you yesterday, and I told you that you wouldn’t be ready to go for at least another week.”
I contemplated and rejected at least three different responses before taking a very deep breath and saying, “Should I come to the hospital now or wait until my contractions start?”
“FINE. Come in,” she grumbled. My second daughter was born 12 hours later.
Obstetricians and midwives are often called upon — all hours of the night — by women who think they are in labor but aren’t, so I get why she was reluctant to drag herself into the hospital for someone who may or may not be having a baby. I was annoyed, but empathetic.
But in Janet Clark’s case, her doctors’ refusal to believe that she was in labor almost led to her giving birth not in a hospital bed, but on a hospital toilet.
The Boston, England woman, then 28 weeks pregnant, went to the Pilgrim Hospital complaining of pain. She says that she was sent home twice in two days after being seen by both doctors and four different midwives, who assured her that she was not in labor and that her baby was safe. Shortly after the last health care worker told her she was fine, she nearly gave birth to her son Zac on a hospital toilet.
“A pregnant woman shouldn’t have to plead with medical staff,” Clark told the Sun.
In Clark’s case, prematurity may have clouded the issue — we can’t know for sure. And as long as Braxton-Hicks contractions and round ligament pain exist, so will doctors who just don’t have the resources to believe that every cramp is a potential contraction.
But every now and then, this nonchalance gets taken a little too far — and in Clark’s case, it could have harmed her baby. Did your doctor believe you when you went in to labor? Or did you have false contractions that made you unsure yourself whether or not your baby was coming?
Photo: Tomas Fano, Flickr
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Tags: contractions, delivery, doctors, hospital, labor, obs, pregnancy, pregnant, premature labor, woman
13 Comments
[...] Woman Labors in Hospital Bathroom After Doctors Send Her Home [...]
Best of Strollerderby November 20, 2009 | Strollerderby commented on Nov 20 09 at 5:00 pm[...] Woman Labors in Hospital Bathroom After Doctors Send Her Home [...]
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A Zen Approach to the Family Holiday | Strollerderby commented on Dec 08 09 at 2:00 pmLisa commented on Nov 17 09 at 10:18 pmUmmm.. why didn’t they just put her on a monitor?
PlumbLucky commented on Nov 18 09 at 7:31 amThat’s my thought too Lisa.
Bec commented on Nov 18 09 at 11:53 amDon’t let your pendulum swing too far, though. Many first-time mothers would spend weeks in the hospital just waiting if the protocol was to believe her every pang is labour and admit her.
I’m not sure what this phrase means: “…doctors who just don’t have the resources to believe that every cramp is a potential contraction” Is it that they don’t have resources, or they don’t believe? I don’t think that resource-availability really affects their diagnoses to that extent.
Em commented on Nov 18 09 at 12:15 pmAt 29 weeks, I had some unexplained abdominal pain. At 30 weeks, it was so bad I couldn’t walk, so I called my doc who said, if I wanted, I could go into the hospital for monitoring. When they hooked me up to the monitor, I was having regular contractions that required two rounds of brethine to stop. I ended up staying in the hospital for nearly a week, and was then put on bedrest. If I didn’t take it as easy as I needed to, the regular contractions would start again.
So, in this case, I didn’t even realize I was having contractions 10 weeks early, I just knew I hurt. And because the doctor gave me the option to be looked at, things ended up okay. (And they may have, anyway. I don’t know.)
PlumbLucky commented on Nov 18 09 at 2:29 pmBec - I don’t mean that either. Where I delivered, there was triage first. You were examined, put on a monitor if needed, and admitted or sent home accordingly.
Ali commented on Nov 18 09 at 5:15 pmCar ein England is quite different than in the US. Generally they just let a midwife examine you and do not use monitors. Besides most moms dont want the technology bit, they want the midwife natural birth experience. It also saves the socialized healthcare systme money not to keep her and monitor her.
GM commented on Nov 23 09 at 6:35 pmEven if she was put on an external monitor, it could have been missed. When I was in labor, the ex. monitor didn’t pick up a thing–internal one showed contrax of 10.
