BusyMamaMD

The nurse called me to examine the newest patient on labor and delivery.  She was 25 years old with her first pregnancy and her contractions were four minutes apart.  “I think I might be in labor,” she whispers, breathing through her contractions.  I informed them I would need to check her cervix and asked her if she would like anyone to step out of the room for the exam.   Her husband, looking at the other woman in the room, asked “Is that ok?  Should we let the doctor do that?”  The woman looks at me and states, “I am her doula.  May I ask is this exam necessary?”  Well, now that you mention it, it’s completely unnecessary.  I was doing it for fun.

Fast forward a few weeks later.  My patient had been 5 centimeters for 4 hours.  Her water had broken about 8 hours ago.  She did not have a fever yet, but her temperature had been steadily increasing.  I recommended we start Pitocin to get her contractions closer together so that we would move labor along.  I did not want to risk her baby becoming infected, a condition called chorioamnionitis.  “Don’t let her give you that,” her friend told her.  “She is trying to rush you.”  Then the other friend chimed in, “Pitocin will hurt your baby…” Yes, I routinely try and harm my patients.

I saw another patient in the office who wanted to discuss her birth plan.  She told me she didn’t want “unnecessary interventions.”  I explained to her that any “intervention” I do, I do because I think it’s necessary.  What obstetrician does interventions they deem to be unnecessary?

Believe it or not, we obstetricians are not inherently evil.  We do not have some sick and twisted desire to ruin your birth experience.   We are not out to get you.  We want you to have a healthy baby.  We want you to be healthy.  Period.  I do not care whether you deliver vaginally or by Cesarean section.  I do not care if you have Pitocin or not.  I care that you and your baby are alive and healthy leaving the hospital together at the end of the experience.  This anti-obstetrician movement that has been sweeping the nation is disheartening.

I know a lot of obstetricians.  We all want the same things.  We care about you and your baby.  Honestly.  I have spent hours agonizing over patients that do not listen to my advice, praying they are okay.  I have cried with patients when a bad outcome occurs.  I have begged patients to let me intervene, knowing they are making the wrong decision for themselves and their baby.  I have spent countless hours away from my family and sacrificed almost an entire decade of my life in medical training.  I have gone into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.  After all of the stress and sacrifice, it breaks my heart to see the social media posts and blogs complaining about the selfish, lazy, and knife-wielding OB doctor.

We are belittled, vilified, and disrespected.  People trust a doula or lay midwife with no medical training over their obstetrician.  Yet, when the home birth goes awry and a woman is rushed to the hospital bleeding profusely or septic with infection, you want the doctor.  Regardless of how much you have badmouthed us or complained about us, we will be there.  Whether or not you came to a single prenatal visit at our office, we will be there.  You can curse at us, spit at us, or call us names and we will be there.  Yet, more and more, doctors are leaving medicine.  Increasing sacrifices and decreasing benefits are turning many away from the field.   We have put up with a lot, but when the people we sacrificed for are turning against us, it makes it hard to keep sacrificing.