To be peed off about how ‘high risk’ pregnant women are treated?

[Cuppasoupmonster]

Inspired by another thread.

My first birth was your typical very medicalised one - induction at 37 weeks (medical reasons I was happy with this), epidural which failed, nobody took the wire out of my back so I was told to stay lying down (in agony!) through some coached pushing and eventually forceps.

Pregnant again and had the conversation of doom with the obstetrician last week. They ‘will induce me at 37 weeks’, I will have ARM and then a 3 hour timer to make some progress because they ‘don’t want me clogging up a labour room’ (in those exact words). Little chance I’ll get to use a pool if I do go into labour after ARM because ‘there’s only 1 out of 12 rooms on labour ward’.

AIBU to feel pissed off? If I was low risk there would be no question of ‘progression timers’ or me ‘clogging up a room’. I understand I’m high risk and that rules out certain things, but AIBU to think we should at least be asked if we have any preferences and what can be done to support them?

In the meantime a FTM who has a much higher risk of Caesarian or instruments than I do as a STM is offered the full suite of options.

Just moaning really ☹️

Ideally they would examine you after 3 hours and see if you need the drip. If you do need the drip, I would ask for an epidural and say you won’t start the drip until one has been administered (and they’ve tested its effectiveness). It’s recommended you have an epidural before the drip anyway so I can’t see much objection on that.

Thats absolutely my plan, as it stand anyway. They had no issues doing an examination once the drip was in naturally 😕 as for the epidural it certainly wasn’t recommended, I had to ask for it at 6cm when I wasn’t coping with just deep breathing and sips of lucozade. Eventually the anaesthetist turned up, put it in and wandered off, they may as well have given me a soft mint for all the difference it made tbh. They didn’t offer to correct it or try again, it was just ‘shoulders back as you’re nearly fully dilated now so let’s get on with it’.

@InTheNightWeWillWish that’s sort of my point really, it feels like if you’re a low risk FTM they’re happy for you to give birth in every scenario going despite the high rate of CS and instruments. It makes no sense to me!

Couple of people have mentioned about having ‘effective’ epidurals before the synto drip is started. It is worth bearing in mind that often the only way to know if the epidural is effective is to start the drip and see what happens. Epidurals really are a bit like witchcraft and having a block to cold spray doesn’t always correlate with getting decent pain relief once things really get going. The Obstetric Anaesthetists Association quote that 1:8 epidurals don’t work well enough to be the sole means of pain relief (they also have a really good patient website (labourpains.com) that gives more info about epidurals/other pain relief options).

YANBU, my 1st pregnancy was low-risk, but I had a horrific birth. 2nd pregnancy was high-risk, but I had the most textbook birth you could have. I really think more pregnant women should check out hypnobirthing programmes, they are more than just “hippy” breathing exercises and they talk about ways to help you weigh up your birthing options and make your own informed choices.

Contact Birthrights OP and see if they can help you get the safe birth you want! They are really good and they know your rights.

IDK if some posters are being naive or deliberately obtuse banging on about how they’d let a doctor unquestioningly do whatever to get a safe baby, as if you want to do acid while listening to whales in a hot tub of raw egg during labour or something. 🤦‍♀️

Birth choices are influenced by hospital politics, budgets and bed management and you only have to glance at the birth trauma threads to see how often women aren’t listened to about choices regarding their own body and the safety of their child and sometimes small changes can make a huge impact on the sense of control and long term mental health of the mother which delivery ward OBs don’t have to deal with or ever see.

The best piece of advice anyone have me was, if you get induced (with a drip), you get the epidural first, otherwise it might not work or it might be too late. And you definitely will need it. I’m so glad I took it. Labour was incredibly medicalised with hundreds of people around me and forceps (complete with bashed up baby’s face too) but I never felt any pain which I think is why I don’t feel traumatised. To go through all of that whilst being in agony… ugh.

Good luck to you to! I hope it’s calm, speedy and as pain free as possible.

Thanks @Msloverlover