WTF--emotional and physical abuse of women during childbirth

I gave birth in 1987 in Brooklyn. The resident Ob-gyn tried to tie my hands down so I wouldn't contaminate the sheet covering me.

To this day I still can't believe it. They used to do that to women prisoners giving birth, but it was declared in humane and outlawed. I was not a prisoner. At the height of labor, I had to fight with that putz to prevent him tying me down. My private doctor, who'd naturally demanded payment in advance, arrived an hour or so after the birth.

My first child, born in Israel, was delivered in hospital by a midwife, with a doctor checking in. It still hurt, of course, but at least I knew the medical staff was on my side.

Barbara R. said:

I gave birth in 1987 in Brooklyn. The resident Ob-gyn tried to tie my hands down so I wouldn't contaminate the sheet covering me.

To this day I still can't believe it. They used to do that to women prisoners giving birth, but it was declared in humane and outlawed. I was not a prisoner. At the height of labor, I had to fight with that putz to prevent him tying me down. My private doctor, who'd naturally demanded payment in advance, arrived an hour or so after the birth.

My first child, born in Israel, was delivered in hospital by a midwife, with a doctor checking in. It still hurt, of course, but at least I knew the medical staff was on my side.

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Shame on these doctors and medical staff.

I've yet to fully recover from the trauma of giving birth, so I'm not going into many details. That was only this decade. The most frustrating part was that I've since been reading about studies that show that all of my instincts were correct. My child and I might deal with the consequences of the staffs' decisions for the rest of our lives.

And I keep reminding myself to feel lucky, because it could've been worse. I knew people at the time who'd had it worse. What's important is that my child survived. I survived.

Yeah, it could've been worse. It could've also been much, much better.

On a related note, hospital food is terrible if you have allergens or sensitivities. Some of the ingredients are considered so unsafe for vulnerable patients that those ingredients are banned on other countries. Here, they're pushed on patients discouraged from bringing in outside food. Patients are expected to deal with the adverse effects on their own.

Meanwhile, formula is pushed on breastfeeding parents, even at the relatively breastfeeding-friendly hospitals, who, apparently, balance out the unhealthy behavior by shaming formula-feeding parents?

The USA needs major shakeups in how medical practioners are educated and employed.

From about 2004 to 2008, my husband and I thought we wanted kids, but ultimately realized we were happier being childfree. There were a lot of factors that went into the decision, but I'm not gonna lie -- the topic of this thread very much factored in. I spent a lot of time on parenting message boards during that time, and read literally hundreds of birth stories, and there was just.... so much abuse. So much. It was horrific. And the women who were seriously traumatized by it were belittled because "you got a healthy baby out of it, so you have no reason to complain."

The way laboring women are treated is terrifying. Especially since we're military, and military doctors scare me on the best of days. My own civilian and military OB/Gyns were verbally (and in one case, physically) abusive. I miscarried at a military hospital, and the corpsmen in the ER were abusive through the entire thing. I had literal nightmares about what would happen if and when I ever got pregnant and stayed that way.

If we had ultimately decided to have kids, I suspect we would have pursued adoption because of this. Giving birth in an American medical facility - military or civilian - sounds utterly terrifying. More and more, I'm hearing people express the same sentiment, especially my friends who are pregnant -- they're legit scared of giving birth, and not because it's gonna hurt.

As some of you may know, I work as a midwife myself. Working in a hospital, where OB-GYNs dominate the birthing culture, I could tell you many terrifying stories about how women are mistreated. But one woman I will never forget. Background information: this was in an academic hospital in The Netherlands, I was a 2nd year midwifery student.

The night shift had been rather calm. There were two women in labour, both about to meet their firstborn. One of the women was African (let’s call her ‘lady X’), the other Caucasian (I will be referring to her as ‘lady Y’). Lady X didn’t speak Dutch, as she just got here a few months ago, lady Y was right there in her hometown and surrounded by familiars. The births both weren’t going very smooth. Lady X’s baby was in serious distress: it’s heart monitor showed that a caesarean section was the only way to get out safely. It was a matter of minutes that could determine both baby’s and mother’s life or death. It was serious, yet no one told her and she labored through the contractions bravely. Lady Y had been laboring for a long time, close to 24 hours, and still wasn’t fully dilated. She had asked for a caesarean section as she was tired and felt she couldn’t do it anymore. Her baby was doing perfectly fine, as it’s heart monitor showed, and there was no sign that any rush was needed.

The gynaecologists sat calmly in their observation room, drinking their coffee or whatever it was they were drinking, and talking about the current events in the delivery ward. As it was such a calm night shift, there was only one team available to perform C-sections. Thus, only one woman could be helped in the operation room to deliver her baby at the time. I remember feeling agitated: why were they so calm when it was clear that one baby was experiencing serious stress? As a young student, I thought they probably knew better and that I was probably exaggerating. Until I heard the following conversation:

Dr. 1: “Who are we going to do first?” (why was that even a question?!?!)
Dr. 2: “I guess we’ll do lady Y first, she’s been at it longer.” (still, lady Y’s baby was doing great)
Nurse: “Sir, have you seen lady X’s heart monitor?” (clearly worried)
Dr. 1: “Yeah, yeah…”
Dr. 2: “She doesn’t understand anyway.”
And they both walked to the operation room and calmly operated on lady Y while lady X’s baby was fighting for it’s life.

I am glad to tell you that both babies were born alive and left the hospital healthy and well, and both ladies were in cloud nine with their bundle of joy as they recovered from this serious operation. But this situation never left my mind ever since. I wish I had the courage to speak up to the nasty doctors, but I didn’t. It's heartbreaking that this is happening all throughout the entire f-ing world.

Don't know if this warrants its own thread, but I stumbled on this:

Ohio bill orders doctors to ‘reimplant ectopic pregnancy’ or face 'abortion murder' charges
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...eme-abortion-bill-reimplant-ectopic-pregnancy

A bill to ban abortion introduced in the Ohio state legislature requires doctors to “reimplant an ectopic pregnancy” into a woman’s uterus – a procedure that does not exist in medical science – or face charges of “abortion murder”.

This is the second time practicing obstetricians and gynecologists have tried to tell the Ohio legislators that the idea is currently medically impossible.

The move comes amid a wave of increasingly severe anti-abortion bills introduced across much of the country as conservative Republican politicians seek to ban abortion and force a legal showdown on abortion with the supreme court.

Ohio’s move on ectopic pregnancies – where an embryo implants on the mother’s fallopian tube rather than her uterus rendering the pregnancy unviable – is one of the most extreme bills to date.

“I don’t believe I’m typing this again but, that’s impossible,” wrote Ohio obstetrician and gynecologist Dr David Hackney on Twitter. “We’ll all be going to jail,” he said.

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-cb

The Christian Taliban is alive and well.

cbenoi1 said:

Don't know if this warrants its own thread, but I stumbled on this:

Ohio bill orders doctors to ‘reimplant ectopic pregnancy’ or face 'abortion murder' charges
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...eme-abortion-bill-reimplant-ectopic-pregnancy

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Yeah, a lot of people are pointing out that's not actually possible to do. If they try to enforce this, they will kill people. Not that they care, of course.

lizmonster said:

If they try to enforce this, they will kill people.

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Not people, just women.

lizmonster said:

Yeah, a lot of people are pointing out that's not actually possible to do. If they try to enforce this, they will kill people. Not that they care, of course.

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The point is to punish women - and if it drives doctors out of business for practicing medicine instead of faith healing, well, so much the better to the American Taliban.

Gotta make more "Christian soldiers" for the war machine, dontcha know. Just a hop, skip & a jump from criminalizing those who actually want to be sterilized.

Introversion said:

The Christian Taliban is alive and well.

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Islam allows abortion at any stage in pregnancy if it's necessary to save the mother's life. (It also allows abortion before 42 days* for other reasons, because Islam teaches that the soul enters the baby at 42 days* and before that, abortion is seen as amputating part of the mother, not killing an individual.)

*sometimes 126 days depending on how you interpret the wording, but I'm assuming the Taliban follow the stricter interpretation

This post isn't to defend Islamic extremists. (ETA: I have nothing against mainstream Muslims, but obviously the Taliban are extremists and I'm not defending the Taliban or other extremists.) We've all seen the horrors they can inflict. The purpose is to point out that on this issue, the Ohio legislators in question are significantly more extreme.