Things Hospital Staff Should Never Say

A few days ago I had to transport a laboring mom from home to hospital. Our two area hospitals are pretty nice to homebirth midwives. I don't think they always "get" us, but they try. And I've never been treated rudely. Indifferently by a nurse or two, but usually it goes fine.
This transport went fine, per usual expectations. It was a woman planning a HBAC who ended up with a hospital VBAC.
So I just have to vent a little about some things said. It's almost like when a person is pregnant and stupid strangers come up and you can't believe the shit that comes out of their mouths. "You're SOOOO big!"
As a midwife, I hear all kinds of not-so-smart comments, sadly it often comes from the mouths of doctors and other highly-educated folks.

So here's a list of dumb comments/occurrences:

After just having explained this woman had CNM care to 30weeks and then saw me just about every week from 30 to 41 weeks, the nice doctor said, "So has she had ANY prenatal care at all?!"

WTF do they think I do when I see my clients? Play board games? Read tea leaves and tarot cards to foresee when the baby will arrive? So I re-iterate to kind doctor, "YES, she saw CNMs until 30 weeks, then me weekly until now."

Doctor: "So how do you monitor the baby?"

Me, trying soooo hard not to roll my eyes: "With my hands, with a doppler, just like you."

Doctor: "Has this woman had ANY lab work?!" (After I had just given her a sheaf of lab work.) I go through the papers she's still holding to point out, here's her CBC, Hep B status, STD status, blood type, she had 28 week rhogam, etc...

Okay, so now the woman is actively pushing. She wants to squat. They let her do it once before telling her she needs to come down onto her back (you know they don't make women go flat on their backs anymore, that's archaic! They allow her this bizarre semi-sit with her upper body at a mere 30 degree angle. Just enough not to be totally FLAT). "Why?!" my client asks.
The answer (from a resident): "Well it's not safe for you to be upright when the baby is born!"

So my client goes onto her back and pushes. Baby's heart rate dips after a contraction. They give client oxygen and tell her to roll on her side, to get her heavy uterus off her vena cava so that baby's heart tones don't dip down. AARGH!!!
I tell her to stay there, to push on her side, it's better for baby.

Oh, another thing I HATE to hear from docs and nurses: "Get mad! That's it! Get mad and push your baby out!"
I have yet to see a woman ANGRY when pushing, unless of course, people are saying really dumb things around her or continually sticking their hands in her vagina.

The resident removes bottom portion of robot bed and tells my client she needs to scoot down 3 inches, you know, so that all the mess can be caught in the handy-dandy biohazard bag. Heaven forbid they see the woman's needs as more important than their own. So poor woman grunts and inches to the end of the bed. "Why do I need to be down here?!" she asks.

"It's safer this way," the nurse answers. "And it's easier for the doctor to catch the baby." !!!!!! Well, I guess they're honest if nothing else.

I was so tempted to say, "I don't know how I catch all those babies at home without these fabulous beds! Most of the time, the mom's bum is a few mere inches from the ground! Imagine how unsafe that is! I could drop the baby!"

Someone please tell me how pushing on a 2 1/2 foot wide hospital bed that's been lifted 4 feet into the air, with it's bottom half removed, makes for a safer catch?

So after a bit more pushing, a beautiful baby was born, healthy and pink.

The doctor actually listened to the mom and didn't cut and clamp the cord right away. They waited 5 minutes before it became flaccid. However, they did give mom an immediate dose of Pitocin (ridiculous routine for 3rd stage "management").

After a few minutes with mom, the nurse takes the baby away to clean her off. The nurse is routinely refused permission to give baby Vitamin K or erythromycin. Not much to do then. But she keeps baby under the warmer to "stabilize" her. Lo and behold, 10 minutes later, she's concerned because baby's temperature dropped (laying naked under a toaster), and you know, we don't know this mom's GBS status and this could be a sick baby. Bloody hell. The wise mama just said, "Let me hold her."

And you all know folks, the baby's temp was miraculously up and normal in 5 minutes.

So as grateful as I am that this mom and baby are both healthy and well, I can't help but be annoyed by the stupid routine happenings in labor and delivery. I'm grateful too, that as a midwife, I'm treated well and not like a barbarian. And I realize that they just don't know that the kind of care we give is similar to what they give (only continuous and longer and more respectful, ahem).

But I honestly really liked the doctor (the two residents and the nurse made me a bit crazy, but the staff OB was great). She was very sweet to all of us and made efforts to keep considering me, as a midwife in the process of this woman's birth.
I had never met her before and thought I'd try to talk to her face-to-face at a later date. I just learned yesterday that this particular doctor is leaving town to move across country. That our homebirth transport was her last catch in Michigan. Her last day at work here.
Imagine that.