AIBU to really hate the term "birth rape"

[laumiere]

It's from this story where a woman is allegedly put under a GA under her will and given an emergency C section. All very unpleasant (although it does throw up the question as to how much we really expect to control a process which at a basic level is still capable of killing us and our babies) but commentators are starting to term it 'birth rape'. As a rape survivor and someone who has supported rape victims as part of my job I am so sick of this term being overused and devalued! (This goes double for the moronic "draping" on FaceBook).

Either women have bodily integrity or they don't.

If she (or her next of kin if she was unconscious) had not given consent they had no right to operate in her regardless of the circumstances.

No ifs, no buts. no maybes. It is HER body.

5madthings, this woman says that the documentation she received was inaccurate, incomplete and false. So too her memory of the event is incomplete.

I am in no way suggesting that she is undeserving of sympathy. She has gone through a very traumatic experience and has been deeply effected by it. I am merely saying that what she presents is an entirely subjective recollection of a very difficult time. She has approached legal professionals, who have reviewed the evidence objectively and none have said that the medical team have a case to answer.

All in all, I think the term birth rape is vile, inappropriate and unhelpful to her. I also wonder what the intentions of those who post this story on FB are.

Edless what do you mean by "lack of nots"?

she didnt use the term birth rape herself, others did on her behalf. factually stating her dh gave consent when he didnt is wrong or can he now not remember.

she means notes i assume.

i got hold of my notes after i had ds1 when i had a sweep performed without my consent, it wasnt even documented!

To comment on the OP, I definitely think the term 'birth rape' is completely inappropriate and unhelpful to the actual woman whose story it is - birth assault would be far more accurate and convey the same idea. I also agree that we can't know the entire truth behind the story but ALL doctors aren't angels ALL the time, however good a job most do, and at the very least recognition of how this woman feels (rightly or wrongly) should have been given by the medical staff.

But, like other posters, I'm absolutely disgusted by some of the attitudes on here! It sounds from some replies as if doctors should be allowed to do anything they like to someone, regardless of reasons and without question, just on the basis that they must always know best, which sounds like a crap way to live. Is it THAT unthinkable to some posters that a woman, who has already done the best for her baby for 9 months in carrying it 24/7 and will (in the most cases) continue to look after it for at least 18 years, should have at least some say in how that baby is delivered and how they are treated while that happens? If wanting at least some say in what happens to your own body makes you unreasonable then why not apply that to everything else too? Would you even let a hairdresser cut your hair without taking into account your wishes? If not then why put up with someone operating on you after lying to you about it? Madness.

If what the woman has written is true then what happened to her is disgraceful and potentially illegal or in violation of her rights. However, we have only one side of the story here. I would need both sides to begin to decide what the truth of the matter was and isn't there a saying somewhere that there's the victim's side of the story, the perpetrator's side of the story and somewhere in the mix lies the truth.

Having said that the three rudest and most insensitive, vulgar and unkind people I have ever met have been midwives . And none of the three had anything to do with any of my births.

I used to live in a student house another girl and a boy.

The lad had his car broke into once, very minimal damage..he was on the phone to another friend, and actually said he felt like he had been "mechanically raped" because his car had a few scratches and the radio had been stolen. I nearly went for him I was so angry, as he damn well knew the other girl in the room, our house mate had been raped as a teen...but then he was always a self centred bastard!

I do think the term "rape" is used now for all sorts of things that are in no way appropriate and it leads to the word being a less forceful term for something horrific.....facebook ie frape etc, it just trivialises the word.

Two of my three births ended in emergancys, 1st such heavy bloodloss I can't even remember what I consented too, 2nd was an emcs due to cord prolapse under ga. It was all so quick it's abit hazy now.

Luckily both times I was fine, so were the babys due to the quick actions of the staff.

I don't remember signing anything or being asked before my forceps delivery if it was okay, although I was told what was happening so I suppose I could have denied consent and the fact that I didn't meant that I consented, although there was no way I wouldn't have consented at that stage of labour with DD's heart rate dropping. I don't really think that rape is an appropriate term to be used in relation to the story in the OP, the desired outcome of healthy mother and baby was acheived, rape is a horrific crime not a life saving operation.

'notes'.

though it appears the hospital believed her DH to have consented, which he didn't...so the 'she might have done so and forgot due to anaesthesia' thing is a pile of crap.

her notes do not explain why the C/S was called.

"the desired outcome of healthy mother and baby was acheived"

No it was not.

The woman this ordeal was inflicted on was massively traumatised by it.

But apparently destroying a woman's mental health is AOK if you happen to fancy tricking her into an operation for no stated reason whatsoever.

and she had a scar rupture.

Guys, you haven't seen the notes so you don't know what they say.

You can operate on someone against their will if they are sectioned under the mental health act. ie force them to have a general anaesthetic and ECT. This is obviously allowed as it can help save someone's life.

I terms of the baby's wellbeing, after a baby is born can a mother refuse for the baby to have treatment if it is vital for his/her survival?

There's not really anything they could say that would make me think it was OK for a hospital to carry out an operation on a human being without any consent when she was conscious and her husband was present.

apparently:

it is ok to perform an unexplained and unconsented C/S - so long as

the woman questions any part of her treatment
you don't like her much
she is middle class
she wanted minimum intervention
if she changed consultants
if, in any other way, she is not totally and instantly obedient to the HCPs..

if she complains -

she is lying
her DH is too
she is self-absorbed
she should have freebirthed instead
she is 'stupid', 'silly' etc

because of course, so long as your baby isn't dead, you have no right to complain.
.

complaints like this lead to improvements. it isn't ok not to keep notes - incomplete notes cause deaths. It isn't ok not to explain - failure to explain adds to trauma. It isn't Ok not to gain consent if at all possible (and it was) - an unconsented procedure is assault.

complaints about this sort of thing should lead to improvements - those improvements can save lives.

Not even if their lives were at risk without the op?

Noone knows what happened or how conscious she was, it sounds like the baby's heart beat was decelerating for some time, she refused to have internal monitors on once.

When she finally agreed they suddenly needed to move her to theatre. Sounds like a problem with the baby's heartbeat, if they had left her much longer maybe the baby would have died. Would that have been a better outcome

I needed an EMCS with DS1.

I sincerely hope that if I had tried to delay the process to discuss it with DH, or any other reason, the medical staff would just have knocked me out and carried on. Otherwise I might not have the lovely (adult) son I have now.

I worry that sometimes we lose sight of what the objective of childbirth is - ie a healthy mother and baby, in our pursuit of the perfect birth experience.

We might only have one side of the story here, and even that suggests the mother was very ante medical intervention.

Not even if their lives were at risk without the OP.

What does "at risk" even mean in this context?

One of the risk of a CS that you are told about when you give consent to one in a non-emergency situation is death.

So their lives were at risk WITH the OP.

erm..but that wasn't clear to her or her husband, or from the notes!!!

where does it say the baby was at risk?

as already mentioned, decels in FHM can be false, or not of concern, if there was a reason for a crash c/s - why didn't they just say? to her or her DH? why wasn't it in the notes?

why not accept it as entirely possible that this woman was given an unconsented C/S for which there was no good reason?

similar things have happened to people on MN.

"if they had left her much longer maybe the baby would have died."

They didn't need to leave her longer.

They just needed to do what is normally done when an emergency section is required and seek her consent and explain what was going on.

In the time it took them to lie to her and trick her into being knocked out they could have explained what was happening.

Why the fucking fuck does anyone think it is OK that that didn't happen?

Do you really think that if a baby is at risk that a medical team should do whatever they can to save the baby? With no thought whatsoever for the actual human being in front of them, who is their patient?

So, the woman is no longer a person. She's just a container for a baby, and any harm she comes to (including death) is OK as long as someone with a medical qualification gives the procedure the thumbs up.

For fuck's sake.

Pregnant women are not less human that the rest of you.