My third birth was a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean); a quick one.  36 minutes from my water breaking to delivery.  It was the best labour and delivery ever. But what occurred after the baby`s birth was abusive. My water broke at 9:40am and we pulled into the hospital parking lot at 10am. By 10:16 my baby was born.

3 minutes after the delivery of the baby, the doctor began to manually deliver my placenta without any pain medication. I had no idea what this was at the time, but described it as her ripping out my placenta before it had a chance to separate. I’ve never experienced anything so painful. Words cannot describe this experience for me. I felt every single piece of the placenta being ripped out. My first baby was a vaginal delivery so I knew this wasn`t “normal“ and had not happened after his delivery.

I asked her to stop and screamed in pain as this was being done. After the procedure was completed, the doctor stitched me up and left the room. She only talked to me twice during the entire 15 minutes we spent together. I asked her if the placenta came out in one piece and she told me it had (obviously it had not). I also asked her how bad the vaginal tears were and she answered that they were first degree tears and not bad at all. After the 15 minutes she spent with my husband and I, she left the room.
The nurse who was taking care of me checked me and saw that I was bleeding quite a lot. She told me I was hemorrhaging. She inserted a catheder and an IV with Oxytocin to try and get my uterus to contract and stop the hemorrhage. I was thinking she was getting me ready for surgery (D&C or hysterectomy as I was hemorrhaging). I was shaking so much at this point and was really cold. I could feel gushes of blood coming out regularly. The nurse started and completed the documentation at this time and I was brought to my room on the maternity floor. I did not hold my baby for the first hour as I felt I was shaking too much and was very emotional because of everything that had just occurred. I refused pain medication as they would only offer me Tylenol 3 which upsets my stomach.

Six hours later, I was still laying in the hospital bed experiencing gushes of blood. That is 6 hours of gushes and nurses pressing down on my uterus every 30 minutes to check on the bleeding. The doctor and the same nurse who was present during the delivery entered my room. The doctor told me she was checking on my bleeding.  Without discussion/consent or pain management of any kind, she inserted her hands into my uterus. I had no idea what she was doing or why this was happening but I screamed and told her to stop. This was the worst pain I have ever felt.

‘I am sure everyone heard me screaming on the maternity floor. The doctor told me 2 months later during a telephone conversation that she had done this to check for a uterine rupture (she checked my previous c-section scar on my uterus) and because she needed to remove some leftover pieces of placenta. This experience has left me very traumatized. I was very emotional after the procedure and the doctor did not explain any of this after the procedure or the following day. All of this was done without ANY pain medications while being held down as I screamed hysterically.  I gave no consent for these procedures and received no respect during them, just barbaric abuse.  No one should have to experience a manual delivery/removal of the placenta, especially without pain medication.  It is a barbaric procedure. I begged for the nurses to give me any type of pain medication and after 30 minutes of crying hysterically, they gave me a shot of morphine.

Sometimes I wonder if the manual delivery of my placenta caused my haemorrhage. I do not feel like it is best practice for Obstetricians to not have discussions or explain what is going on with their patients (unless of course it’s a life and death situation). I clearly asked her to stop during both procedures but I was not listened to. None of these procedures were presented as choices or even explained to me.
During the birth of my first child, I had experienced a spontaneous delivery of the placenta and that was a very positive experience. I held my baby right away, I breastfed and we called family before the placenta was even delivered. I don’t understand why a manual delivery was even an option after this  birth. I also needed surgery on my vagina 4 months postpartum, which I believe was due to damage to my stitching  from when the doctor inserted her arm into my uterus 6 hours after giving birth to my daughter vaginally.

I believe that my birthing experience could have been a positive one. However, as a result of what happened during and after the manual delivery/removal of the placenta, I feel this experience has caused me trauma.I developed PTSD symptoms and would relive the experience over and over every night. I’m now feeling stronger after 4 sessions of EMDR therapy.

I wrote the hospital a letter of complaint in hopes that this will not happen to any other women. The hospital called me back and they validated all of my feelings and heard the message I was trying to deliver.  They acknowledged the courage it must have taken to write such a letter.  Although she would not say that the doctor had made a mistake, the woman who called acknowledged that the letter was very impressively written and that I had researched much of the best practices. The doctor who delivered had come to see her when she received the letter as she was genuinely concerned that she had hurt someone.  It doesn’t make any of what happened to me okay or better, but I was ready for a battle and to receive acknowledgment and validation is nice at this time.

The hospital is arranging a face to face meeting between the doctor and I so she can apologize and we can discuss the situation.  I’m not sure how this will go. The last conversation I had with her over the telephone (8 weeks post partum) was an apology for not seeking consent and for the lack of communication. The apology was followed by a “BUT it was for your best interest”.  I told the manager of the department that I was not able to accept her apology as she justified what she had done to me.  I told her I would like an authentic apology with no “buts” or justifications.  I acknowledged that we are all human and that we all make mistakes.  I’m not sure what this apology will look like when we do meet, but if I feel it’s not genuine, I plan to send my letter to the college of physicians.  I’m sure my anxiety is going to be through the roof on that day.

The hospital is also arranging for me to speak at a staff meeting about birth trauma, PTSD and my experience.  The staff meeting is for all the nurses that work on Labour and Delivery so that they can help stand up for patient care more.  None of the nurses that saw me during my stay ever acknowledged my experienced or helped me despite it being clearly evident that I was emotionally distraught.   I was hysterical and emotional and questioned most nurses that entered my room about what happened to me. No one ever got answers for me.  They just redirected me to ask the doctor. I couldn`t do that at the time; the doctor did not feel like a safe person for me.

I am hoping to make a difference and help other women through addressing these issues directly with the hospital.
Josée Lee

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I read a lot of birth trauma stories, and most of them seem much more scary than mine. The doctor who was there, Dr. Joseph Hazan, was a complete stranger and violated my rights to informed consent. He told me everything was going great, but all the while he was performing a vacuum extraction without my consent OR EVEN MY KNOWLEDGE. I am beginning to find strength in telling my story, but it is rough going. I firmly believe that had the doctor taken 15 seconds to tell me what was going on and involve me in the process, I would not have PTSD from the experience.

It is important to note that the hospital was extremely responsive to my complaint, meeting with me and even agreeing to work on their communication with other L and D patients. The doctor was also very kind after my complaint, calling me twice personally to explain and apologize. Still, I did not need a sympathetic hospital and a nice guy a week after delivery. I needed a doctor and a hospital that would treat me like a human being when it mattered most — during the moments when my daughter was being born. The hospital sent me a letter saying it had conducted an internal investigation and found that while the medical measures were warranted, the hospital “recognized an opportunity to improve communication.” I should say so.

I consider mine a lesson in patient consumerism. It’s terrible to be treated poorly, and I’m not sure what I could have done differently as I had no idea any of this was going on. But I know that if someone treats you like garbage you should stand up to him, and I’m proud to be the kind of mom who taught her daughter that in the first moments of life.

Exerpt from original post on mybestbirth.com. 

Read Erin’s Full Story and Letters Here

Erin Shetler, St. Peters, Missouri, November 2012

The post Erin: Standing up for myself after my informed consent rights were violated appeared first on Humanize Birth.

Story and photo from a Canadian mother

The post My body & my baby’s body were both damaged from medical childbirth appeared first on Humanize Birth.

I was DENIED an epidural for 3 hours (I was experiencing extreme back labour, with no breaks in between contractions).

WITHOUT my informed consent, several attempts to attach an internal heart monitor failed. I felt VIOLATED by the two male doctors with each attempt and was then left wondering if my baby was ok.

I was TOLD that the baby was showing signs of distress and that he needed to come out. I was TOLD that they would try forceps first and if that didn’t work, I would have to have a c-section. Then the room filled with people (11 to be exact). My birth plan clearly stated NO STUDENTS yet the OB was encouraging a resident to perform the task (bless him for refusing to do it).

As I felt the blades push my baby back up inside of me to rotate him, I left my body. I came back to the ORDERS of everyone to “push”. He was born, cord cut, and those first precious moments were STOLEN from us. His Apgars were 9, 9, and 9. THAT is NOT a baby in distress….and even if they believed that he was, it should have been all the more reason to leave our cord intact and place him directly on my chest.

I suffered from PTSD because students needed to “learn”. I wish I knew everything that I know now.

BC Women’s Hospital, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2009

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 This was my first birth. It was a ‘straightforward’ hospital birth. I did use gas, but no other painkillers. I didn’t really go into the birth with any expectations. I was not emotionally traumatised by her birth. But after being told to push for 3 hours, before I ever felt I needed to (I never did, in fact), I was exhausted. I ended up with my legs being held in the air, and as you can see by the blood on my baby, I did not come out of the experience physically intact. In fact, my physical recovery took many, many months, which created psychological issues in itself.

Jen Shipston, Queensland, Australia

The post Jen: I still grieve for the missed time with my second-born child appeared first on Humanize Birth.

My fourth child was born in a traumatic way. First, I was ignored and they tried to send me home. He was premature and we already knew he had medical issues. They said I wasn’t in labor and tried to send me home, actually handing me discharge papers less than an hour before he was born. They had to re-admit me after his birth. I stayed in the hospital room though, refusing to leave.

My call light didn’t work, neither did the alarm button, and my husband went running down the hall to find someone when my water burst and there was meconium and the baby was coming.

I was harassed by the nurse who first yelled at me for not having an IV (that she had taken out of my arm 2 hours previously) and then told me to my face that I was going to die because I didn’t have the IV in.

Then she held me down to the bed on my back when I said I didn’t want to birth on my back. The doctor yelled at me too, told me i was being “irrational and incompliant”.  The doctor screamed at me and told me I wasn’t “allowed” to have my baby yet.

When he was born they had nothing for him to help him, they were still wheeling the premature baby equipment back into the room. He wasn’t breathing. It took like what seemed like forever to get him breathing, his heartbeat was barely there by the time they had him stabilized.

That same nurse shoved her hand up me so hard after the birth that I squealed in pain and she yelled at me again.  It was horrible.  My son is now 4 years old. He’s alive and doing well although he has birth defects and possibly more brain damage from when he was born than he would have suffered otherwise.

After he was born, I had retained some placenta. About 4 or 5 days after I went into the same doctor’s office. They refused to even look at me said I would be fine. I passed the placenta later that day and thankfully I was fine but that could have ended very badly.

I contacted a lawyer after Tealc”s birth….they told me that the doctors are protected. the only way to get a lawsuit on them was to have the doctor sign off on it — i.e., admit on paper that he did something wrong and agree to be sued!!  Yes, no kidding.  I contacted 4 different law firms about it. None of them would touch it.  Basically they tell women “well you didn’t die and your baby is alive so quit whining”.

It wasn’t my “regular” doctor that had delivered my baby, it was an on-call doctor and not even a full doctor at that he was a student. I don’t know his name or if he still works there. I tried to get those records but they wanted $200 or more for them and I couldn’t afford it at the time. Now to get it would cost more than a thousand dollars.

The rest of my births (I have 6 kids) weren’t nearly so bad. Except for some nurses sticking there hands up me when I was about to push out the babies. I’ve learned to speak up for myself and stand my ground before I go into labor and it has been better.  Still, I wish there were midwifes in my area because I’d love to do homebirth instead.

My 5th child was born in our van on the way to the hospital. It was a very empowering and unexpected birth experience, but when I got to the hospital I was treated badly, ignored and yelled at for “not waiting for a doctor”

My 6th birth was better, except for the nurse that shoved her hands up me while I was about to push out my baby. I ripped my shoulders trying to pull myself up away from her. Other than that, they respected most of my wishes that time because i threatened to sue them if they didn’t.

My first 3 births were “average”, I guess, because I just went with whatever the doctor said. I was young and didn’t know better.

Sonya Lillis, Duluth, Minnesota, USA

The post Sonya: The doctor screamed at me and told me I wasn’t “allowed” to have my baby yet. appeared first on Humanize Birth.

After the c-section (which I felt because of crappy epidural but nobody acknowledged my sensations as possible), they showed me my son, told me he is fine but had a fever (I had a fever) and that they would take him for observation to the NICU. I did not see him for a full day until they finally came to help me out of bed.

I had 4 types of antibiotics just in case while they were waiting on the results from the lab regarding my fever. Same thing with him. Nobody explained to me why this is done and nobody asked me my permission. Eventually on day two one nice nurse came to me and told me that if I really want him I can have him in my room because he is doing OK and nothing is wrong with him! Without my consent they fed him formula. It was a nightmare and another failure to make him take my breast. We nursed for 20 months after that, but that’s not my point.

It is bewildering how they treated us and did things to us without even telling us the reasons and what they are doing. And I just went with it because I thought that this is what you are supposed to do. It took me years to repair and heal our bond with my son and my self esteem.

Rumyana Kudeva
South Jersey, US
2007

The post Rumyana: It is bewildering how they treated us and did things to us without even telling us appeared first on Humanize Birth.

This happened in 2007. I have had a VBAC in hospital and an HBAC in our home since then. I don’t know that I have really recovered from it yet though. I am just coming to terms with it now that I have had two more healthy, healing births.

They never asked me once what I wanted to do and they never told me any risk/benefits of the procedures that THEY DECIDED to do to ME. They never gave me any options and I didn’t know enough to realize that they were wrong.

The thing is I coped with this by focusing on the good things that had happened with his birth. I was able to have him skin to skin and breastfeeding within a half hour after he was born. I also thought that if I had to have a csection that at least it was with this doctor and not the one that I had been seeing(she didn’t have a very good rep). I was soooo truly uninformed that it hurts now.

I am so very happy that I found other women that are informed and started listening to stories about natural childbirth. I found out about doulas and midwives after my VBAC in the hospital. It has made all the difference. So if I can help even one other person by sharing my story… it’s worth it.

Amy, SW Saskatchewan, Canada

The post Amy: They never gave me any options and I didn’t know enough to realize that they were wrong appeared first on Humanize Birth.

“Ten years ago I had a hospital birth.  My birth, as institutional births go, wasn’t terribly dramatic.  Outside of IV antibiotics for Group B Strep, I had an unmedicated birth.

But it wasn’t a spiritual birth.  It wasn’t a respectful birth.  And it certainly wasn’t an empowering birth.”

Read Kathi’s full story

Kathi, Grand Rapids, MI, USA

The post Kathi: It wasn’t a spiritual birth. It wasn’t a respectful birth. And it certainly wasn’t an empowering birth. appeared first on Humanize Birth.

My very first live birth in a hospital, I was induced with cervidil and pitocin because I was not progressing fast enough for the doctor and nurses’ liking. I didn’t know any better. I had no idea what my options were or that I even had any other than what they were telling me. Every time the nurse did a “check” she hooked her finger trying to “get that lip out of the way”. It was excruciating. Each time she would say “sorry, I won’t do that again.” and then the very next time, she would. I started to beg her not to do any more checks. My mom started asking her not to do anymore, each time it became more and more painful and her fingers bloody when she took them out. The more I cried out in pain and begged her to stop, the harder she pushed in with her short fingers trying to force my cervix.

Under any other circumstances in our country, this is rape. I did not consent to having her shove her hand into me, I was told it had to be done. My hand was slapped out of the way when I tried to touch my baby’s crowning head and I was told to keep my germs hands out of there. My quiet labour was broken once by a loud cry as her head emerged and I was told, “be quiet, that was not necessary.” After she was completely delivered, they took her across the room and poured what felt like scalding water over me to wash me for stitching. Those three stitches hurt so much, I question whether they even used anaesthetic. I didn’t feel I needed them, but I was not asked.

My daughter’s birth is a traumatic memory in many aspects. I hated myself for a long time for not being able to birth her without their “help” I felt like I failed. I failed me, I failed her. For a time during labour, I even felt I had failed the medical staff. Now I realize, it was not me who failed, it was they who forced themselves and their agenda.

Not only was Jinaea’s birth traumatic, but nurses on the maternity ward worked so hard to force my sleepy baby to nurse that she would not latch for three weeks. She would only scream as soon as she got even near my breast. At one time, when my baby was only one day old, the nurse was holding so tightly to the back of my baby’s head, that her nail beds were turning white.  Jinaea screamed and cried so much. I saw her fingers and pushed her hands away and told her I would do it myself. 

I did not educate myself on childbirth before I had her, I did not educate myself much on breast-feeding. Was it my own fault? Yes I bear part of the responsibility, but they forced their power and authority, I didn’t know that I could disagree or decline with my own authority. I will send you a picture that you can use for her story.

I remember straining to see her at this point. She was so purple for what seemed like an eternity. Cord traction was being used while I laid there looking at her. I bled enough that they called for 2 units of blood on hand just in case.

I didn’t accept any blood. I had no idea that cord traction could cause hemmorhage.

I know better now.

Michelle, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada

Read the birth story of Michelle’s other daughter here.

The post Michelle: For a time during labor, I even felt I had failed the medical staff. Now I realize, it was not me who failed, it was they who forced themselves and their agenda. appeared first on Humanize Birth.