A Short Rant

     Braggadocio is my pet peeve in the lay-woman's pregnancy world.  Since my early feedback to this site is that I need to avoid the fancy language, I'll define what I mean, because there is a group of women to whom I am not addressing this rant.  Braggadocio is boastful talk.

     What started this rant was a page from a client of one of my colleagues, for whom I was taking call.  So I don't know this woman, and she wasn't expected to go into labor during this 4 days of coverage.  To begin with, I think they were a very innocent couple, in that they perhaps had not absorbed all the information given to them in their prenatal classes, or worse, were blinded by stories told to them and therefore did not think that this prenatal education applied to them.  This was her first baby.  Her waters had broken (SROM - spontaneous rupture of membranes) and she "was told to page right away when that happened".  The amniotic fluid was clear, the baby was moving, and she was negative for that favorite bug of ours, Group B Streptococcus.  If a woman has GBS, we give her antibiotics in labor to help protect the baby from getting infected by this bacteria.  But since she didn't have it, we had the luxury to wait until labor started.  So I instructed her about when to page back, since she clearly wasn't in labor yet.  "But," she says, "my mom delivered us all within 20 minutes of breaking her water!"  She was clearly fearful that the baby would just fall out in the next few minutes.

     Did I mention this was her first baby (primipara, or "primip")?
     "Okay, but how long was your mother in labor with her first before her water broke?".
     "Oh, I don't know.  All I know is the 20 minutes!"
So I explained to her the expectation of progress in a first time labor, the difference between early and active labor, and reinforced when to call back, which she did in about an hour and a half.  Well, it's been more than 20 minutes, I say to myself.  Her husband said that she was laboring in the tub, and that she was in a lot of pain.  Going on the theory that she comes from good breeding stock and may indeed have a very efficient primip labor, we agree to meet at the hospital.  I've seen all types of labors, and don't want to get caught with an unplanned/unattended home birth, or worse, a car birth.  I would have seen them at home, but they are anxious, and I live 30 minutes from the hospital.  Don't peek below, but try to guess now what her dilation is.

     Here, however, is the nature of my rant.  Her mother's braggadocio, and very likely lack of labor education 25-30 years ago, have prompted this woman to believe that her labor will be short and effortless.  She is not prepared.  When I see her in the hospital she is smiling between contractions,  but unhappy during them, and her cervix is 3 cm dilated.  She is very disappointed.  She says, "I guess I'm a wimp, then."  She's disappointed in herself.  She surely felt that she must be ready to deliver if she was in "so much pain", given her mother's history.  I'm sorry to have to tell her that she's not really officially in labor, but very close.  We find here using 4 cm as a definition of active labor in first-time moms allows them to get into a good labor pattern and reduces the rate of interventions that come from admitting a woman to hospital too early in labor.  She uses Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas) to get her to 5 cm dilation, which she does along the expected labor progress curve, and then asks for an epidural.  Since I have to transfer care for epidurals, the Obstetrics team takes over and I go home to sleep, since I've been up all night.  I plan to have another midwife attend the birth if the woman delivers before I've had my required sleep.  I do however, make it to the birth, 8 1/2 hours later, a very cute baby girl.  Not 20 minutes.

     The other half of this rant is the opposite problem that we see in my field.  Women who tell pregnant women their birth horror stories.  How they were in labor for days, how they "ripped from stem to stern".  I wonder what brings women to impose these terrible images on their pregnant sisters?  It is, in part, a form of braggadocio.  I'm tough because I went through this horrible experience, and lived to tell the tale.  I also believe that, in some slices of our culture, it is a form of control of the partner.  You did this to me and it was a horrible experience and I lived to tell the tale, and don't you forget it.  And finally, the group of women whom I am not addressing in this rant, those women who truly had horrible experiences, were mismanaged, misinformed, mistreated, and who now have some form of post-traumatic stress.  Don't get me wrong.  These women should still not tell their horror stories to pregnant women, but their need to talk about it is legitimate.  Their audience is not.  Talk therapy is a legitimate form of treatment for PTSD.  Pregnant women will not bring closure to the problem, skilled therapy will. 

     Having said that, a little sage advice from delivered moms can be helpful.  Pick this hospital, not that one.  Watch out for this certain caregiver, they _______.  Go to prenatal classes.  Learn what your choices are, and what are the pros and cons of these choices.  Educate yourself about, and consider a homebirth.  Oh wait a minute.  That's my advice.