Obstetric violence - legs forced open against my will

[NibliaBiblia]

When I was in labour with my daughter, the midwives spent twenty minutes trying to force my legs open to get me flat on my back with my legs up. There was no emergency. It was so they could get a better CTG reading. I physically resisted for as long as I could and verbally told them to stop. They didn't stop until I gave up. After that they did other things without my consent, but I did not they to stop them again.
I complained to the hospital and they have done nothing. I complained to the police and they told me there must have been an emergency. I've complained to the NMC and the CQC. I hope they will do something but it's a long process so I won't know for a long time.
The police used to say that domestic violence was a private matter. They used to say that if you got in the car/went into the apartment/were drinking then you must have agreed to it. I think this is exactly the same type of justification, applied to equally criminal behaviour.
I don't think my experience is abnormal. I think this is fairly routine. They thought that when I gave up that meant I consented.

Given the number of black and Asian doctors, nurses and midwives out this might make less difference than you think.

White privilege is very very real

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/81/health-and-social-care-committee/news/209309/black-women-still-ignored-in-maternity-care-say-mps/

You'd think given the number of women obstetricians and midwives we wouldn't be so vulnerable to abuse when we walk into a labour ward but read this thread and spend some time on the childbirth board and talk to women in new mum and baby groups.

Why are you shrieking? Sounds like you could just put the pan down and think logically and not be carrying pans of scolding water around a child around your legs, that’s a recipe for disaster that actually ‘shrieking’ won’t solve

and actually gentle parenting is about natural consequence and a consistent and clear explanation of cause and effect, not using coercion, force and intimidation to get compliance precisely what’s lacking here (and seemingly in your home as well)

I think she means that I'm a spoiled child and gentle parenting is to blame. I should have been shrieked at more as a child and that would have taught me to behave myself.
Only a spoiled child would refuse to lie back spread her legs when she was being told to do so by a HCP.
I really hope that if her DD is ever assaulted by a HCP she changes her tune.

I was more generally saying that in an emergency or if things change suddenly or catch you off guard things become fraught, and calm words and kind hands go out of the window, maybe as it should because it makes people take notice. There’s an expectation for HCP’s to be other worldly beings who always do the right thing and calmly and slowly explain what needs to happen and is that ok and are you sure? It’s become more and more obvious in what you’ve explained that you were not doing what was needed in an emergency or a potential emergency for your baby. In the heat of the moment it doesn’t sound like they sought and waited for clear enthusiastic consent. I have no idea why they needed you on your back, but I maintain that they weren’t doing it to be unnecessarily cruel to you, what had they to gain?

If my DD is ever assaulted by a HCA you hope I change my tune? Wow, how lovely you are.

Don’t worry I’ll make sure to speak up and advocate for her, unlike your husband.

@Conundrummum123

actually gentle parenting is about natural consequence and a consistent and clear explanation of cause and effect

Meanwhile DD has burned herself because she’s away with the fairies and probably on the phone to one of her mates. Natural consequences, true I suppose.

But I digress

You think it takes an otherworldly being to not spend twenty minutes forcing my legs apart?
I've said many times this was not an emergency. They did not say it was an emergency, they didn't press the buzzer, they didn't document an emergency, no one from the hospital had ever tried to suggest there was an emergency - and I've spoken to a lot of them since.
I certainly hope that your DD is not assaulted. I hope that no woman is ever assaulted. But when you say that i should have just let them do it, when you assume that they must have had a good reason for doing it just because of their profession - are you teaching her to stand up for herself or are you teaching her to lie down and shut up?

natural consequences in terms of gentle parenting is, we’re going soft play at 9, you mess before hand around, that’s time you don’t have at soft play.
you won’t wear suncream then we can’t safely play outside

how your child burnt herself I don’t know, but it’s not great parenting if she relies on your constant shrieks to help her identify a dangerous situation. One for you to reflect on perhaps

no no no. They are medics consent never goes out of the window in fraught circumstances. It is literally what they are trained to do, deal with time sensitive emergencies.

and it’s not an emergency if they spent a considerable amount of time trying to wrestle someone on to their, a more efficient use of time would be to explain to someone what they need to do and why.

@NibliaBiblia As I’ve said before, you said yourself you were unresponsive, so much so that they were trying to physically move you for some amount of time before you told them to stop pulling your legs. You weren’t complying with what they were asking you to do in a dangerous medical situation. Four midwives in the room is not “everything’s fine we just fancy making this woman’s life a bit more miserable”. Needing to monitor your baby is not for nothing.

As for my DD, I’m teaching her to stand up for herself when necessary, and yet not be someone who thinks she knows better then clinicians because something hurts or isn’t what she wants to do right now. I really am done with discussing this. We won’t agree and I don’t know what you want from all this? A friend of mine suffered shoulder distocia, it can be catastrophic, her baby ended up with a broken collarbone and nerve damage, the midwife came to her in tears after to apologise. Is this what you want from your midwives? Guilt and humiliation? I don’t understand.

Will another women ever be treated roughly or sternly during childbirth? Probably. They don’t call it labour for nothing.

Ah well. There we are then.

Good afternoon - please do stick to our Talk Guidelines when posting and avoid personal attacks. This is an important conversation, so it would be a shame to see it derailed. Thanks, folks.

@Squishymama - you seem to be missing the point that there was NO emergency situation - not by my reading of @NibliaBiblia‘s posts. There was nothing immediately urgent in her ctg trace that made it imperative for the trace to be restored. The only problem is that the sensor was losing contact - and that was by no means the sort of urgent situation that would ‘justify’ the use of force on a labouring woman.

They spent 20+ minutes struggling to force a woman onto her back, when they could have spent 5 minutes or less explaining why the ctg was necessary, how long it would take, and why it wouldn't work unless she was on her back. Had they done that, she might have agreed to be on her back for long enough to do the trace.

There was no dangerous medical situation. you have had actual midwives on this thread explain why this behaviour was unnecessary. Why don't you take your own advice and listen to what the trained medics are saying here.

As for your last point....

There have been many reports to say that as a a black woman you are almost 5x more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth. Fivexmore is a great resource to help understand the barriers and experiences black mothers face when accessing care.

Yeah I had a shoulder dystocia too. Most of the midwives I've spoken to about it since thought it probably happened BECAUSE I was on my back with my legs spread and they'd tried to pull my baby out immediately without waiting either 60 seconds or for another contraction.
I know that was an emergency because they said it was, pressed the buzzer, a bunch of people ran in, and they documented it. None of that happened when they were assaulting me because it wasn't an emergency when they were assaulting me - it was just what they wanted me to do so it would be easier for them to monitor (and probably to control) me.

Funny, I’ve seen that reel too. Mature

"A friend of mine suffered shoulder distocia, it can be catastrophic, her baby ended up with a broken collarbone and nerve damage, the midwife came to her in tears after to apologise. Is this what you want from your midwives? Guilt and humiliation? I don’t understand."

Humiliation? What is humiliating about apologising for fucking up?

Yes, ABSOLUTELY the midwives should have apologised to OP. That probably would have saved her years of trying to recover from this act of clearly unjustified brutality.

"Will another women ever be treated roughly or sternly during childbirth? Probably. They don’t call it labour for nothing."

That's why I recommend that women should have elective caesareans, like I did. Until the system is fixed and women are routinely respected as human beings with agency over their bodies, that's the safest approach for mothers and their babies.

Women are increasingly realising that how things are done is not OK and pushing back. When I was pregnant with my first in 2000, I lived temporarily in the Netherlands, which at the time was heavily pushing midwife-led homebirth. On asking a midwife about pain relief, she showed me a piece of rubber that I could bite down so that I didn't destroy my dental work 🤯 And told me she didn't want to do a Doppler because it "bothered the baby" 🤯🤯 She also hadn't bothered to scrub the blood from under her cuticles, blood from the birth she had just come from 🤯🤯🤯 I was then not allowed to get a blood test for fetal abnormalities because the high false positive rate "upset women" 🤯🤯🤯🤯 And the old male obstetrician I went to to discuss my significant reservations about this birthing system in NL got aggressive and tried to shove me out of his room 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

Fuck that for a joke. I went across the border and got an elective CS and it was calm, gentle, joyful, and completely safe for me and my daughter.

And it seems millions of women in NL have also gone right off this barbaric system: the rate of women having homebirths in NL dropped from 35% in 2000 to 10% today. Why? Because a major study showed in 2003 that NL had the highest rate of perinatal mortality in Europe.

Pregnancy and childbirth place a MASSIVE impost on women's bodies and mental health. AND the economic costs to the system are enormous when things go wrong. We pay taxes, the healthcare system should be better than this. Women need to keep militating, so that their daughters and daughters-in-law don't have to struggle and suffer.

OP, you're fighting the good fight.

Being in labour isnt a medical emergency. I hope your daughter learns about her own bodily autonomy from a better source than you.

As someone who’s actually worked as a midwife you’re way off the mark. I’ve been in life and death situations & still managed not to assault someone.

Likewise I hope your daughter isn’t raised to ignore pain, or to minimise it in a healthcare setting. If a vagina explanation hurts, say so and it will stop and technique adjusted, for example.

I totally respect your decision to have an elective C-section, it's ridiculous that you didn't have access to a safe respectful birth with an epidural (assuming that would have been your ideal based on limited information, apologies if that's incorrect) and that midwife/obstetrician sound horrific but just want to say personally I would encourage anyone tempted by a home birth to look into it a bit more.
For plenty of women it just doesn't appeal for a variety of reasons but it actually is very safe for low risk women. There was a recent meta analysis on the Lancet looking at half a million intended home births which found it's just as safe as hospital for the baby, and much safer for the mother.
For me personally my home birth with my second baby was the best day of my life. Yes it was painful, but it was a good pain if that makes sense? It wasn't because something was wrong, it was my body working at peak capacity. A bit like when you're sprinting your lungs hurt but it doesn't feel bad because you know it's normal and healthy. If you had that same sensation sitting at your desk for no reason you'd feel like you were dying.
PS shoulder dystocia is not predictable. Nobody knows why it happens in any particular case and it doesn't necessarily mean anyone did anything wrong. It is genuinely frightening for all involved.

I totally respect your decision to have a home birth as well. You did your research and made a balanced decision. The healthcare system should help women achieve their goals while communicating with them respectfully, not running over them, treating them as hysterical fools, and (re)traumatising them.

I actually had no goal in mind when I got pregnant. I'd never even thought or read about pregnancy, birth, feeding etc before I got pregnant, and had zero idea of how insanely political and polarised the whole thing was/is. I did some pretty impartial literature research before I started contacting midwives etc (I am a research scientist) and that together with my experiences in NL made it clear to me that I wasn't going to be properly informed in that environment. Instead, I was being pushed down a path that had no respect for me as a human and as an individual, and that seemed frankly dangerous, not to mention fucking painful 😡

After I contacted a British ob in writing and discussed with her the conclusions of my research - which was that elective CS is NOT more dangerous than attempted vaginal birth for a primigravid 33 yo woman who wanted 2-3 kids - I opted and pushed for what I considered would be safest for me and my baby. This calculation included my mental health.

You did the same. Chapeau to you.

It is crazy that it's so political! I kind of wonder if it's actually a tiny minority of people who actual judge anyone for any of this stuff but because they are so vocal they seem to be everywhere?
Helen Lewis writes a bit about it in her history of feminism. Her take was that an atmosphere of judgement is just another way we stay isolated, tiptoeing around and not talking to other women about our difficulties because we are afraid of being judged or having others think we are judging them.