The Nurses' Page
Compiled by LLM
For nurses' homebirth stories, go here.
Also see Doctor
Dangers and by LLM: In
Honor of the Hospital Midwives.
On this page:
Birth Stories
Hospital
Peter's
Birth Story Susanna, an ER nurse, entrusted
the medical establishment with her care in first
pregnancy and birth. The "care" she
went on to receive however was so callous, unethical
and dehumanizing that she is planning on leaving
the nursing profession altogether. Note that
her sweet little boy was born with his cord
wrapped around his neck twice (with no complications
due to this), and an incomplete unilateral cleft
lip (no palate involvement). Includes pictures.
Susanne
Ray's cesarean stories Susanne had three
cesareans, then one home waterbirth. She says-
"I decided to look into a midwife and homebirth,
since I was never satisfied with the care I
had received in the hospitals. Being a nurse
myself, I know that lots of practices in the
hospital are solely for the convenience of the
staff and have little to do with patient safety
or happiness."
From
a hospital obstetrical nurse...
A nurse talks about her expereriences in her
own births, and what she has seen in other women's
births.
High
risk pregnancy does not have to mean high tech
birth Maurenne Griese, an obstetrical nurse,
shares the circumstances that led to her own
Cytotec induction. Discussed: how common it
is for "off label" drugs to be used
in pregnany and childbirth, how ultrasound pictures
can be misleading, what it feels like to have
pre-eclampsia, and how her Cytotec contractions
were "hard, fast and explosive".
Andrew's
Birth Story After a sad c-section, Jennifer
(a registered nurse) finally gets her VBAC...
but she finds the experience bittersweet.
My
Cesarean Story Chris's "midwives"
failed to mention natural ways to bring down
blood pressure, and induced her with Cervidil.
What followed was terrible violation and intervention
in her labor, and then a cesarean that Chris
felt- in every part of her being. The midwives
blamed Chris (a nurse), and said that she was
unable to give birth. Of course this isn't true!
This page includes a response from LLM,
site editor.
Home
Charlotte's
Birth Susanna, a registered nurse, gave
birth to her second child in luscious power
and self-reliance in her bathtub. She caught
her own baby, and had the birth of her dreams!
The only element missing in he perfect birth
is he husband- he is in the military and has
been, since before the birth, stationed in Iraq.
Note that Susanna deeply regrets the severance
of the umbilical cord, and talks about how she
has preserved the placenta for her daughter
to care for. Includes many beautiful photos.
Addendum addded 10/1/03: Daddy has come home!
The
Births of Amy Noelle and Nicole Faith Patricia,
a registered nurse, gives birth at home to twin
girls; the first girl being born into water.
Patricia had been planning to go to the hospital,
but things happened too fast to transfer. This
links to Patti's other stories on BirthLove,
including her first homebirth story (her second
child) and her third child's breech birth story.
Many lovely photos are included.
Cecilia
Elizabeth Herrington's Birth Story Mary
is an OB nurse; her baby was born into her husband's
hands at home with her midwife still on the
way. Throughout her entire labor Mary doubted
she was actually in the birth process; says
Mary- "Even though I had attended hundreds
of women in labor, I wasn't sure what to expect....I
was determined not to call out the midwives
until I was in an established active labor pattern.
I was secretly afraid of calling them too soon
and looking like a fool when they found me to
be only one centimeter...Unresolved fear is
a powerful thing. A mere thirty minutes before
my daughter was born I was still telling myself
that it might all be a false alarm!" Note
how beautiful her husband was throughout the
birth process.
Lauren
Elisabeth's Miracle Birth Carmen, a registered
nurse, gives birth at home in the water after
four previous cesareans! Note how perfect her
birth team was, and how instrumental it was
that they were picked perfectly for her smooth
birth. Also noteworthy: Carmen had had a tubal
ligation, and a successful reversal; and that
Carmen was 42 when she gave birth.
See: From
an English Midwife
Matthew's
Birth Patti (a registered nurse) gives
birth in radiance and passion at home, with
her husband and dear midwives attending. This
includes many photos
Gavin's
Triumphant Birth Molly is an OB nurse. She
had a homebirth with her second child; an experience
that filled her with joy and passion for natural
birth. Included: a bit about her first traumatic
birth, how her extended family made her second
birth more stressful than need be, and what
might have happened if she had transferred
to the hospital with prolonged rupture of membranes.
Also see: homebirth stories by midwives
and doctors.
Articles and Letters
Nurses wash their hands
more often than doctors
Audit of soap usage by a primary care team.
For full text go here.
The following is excerpted from: bmj.com Customised
@lerts: Press Releases for Saturday, 20 December
2003.
"Nurses are more conscientious handwashers
than doctors, finds a study in this week's Christmas
issue of the BMJ. Hand washing is a quick, cheap
and easy way of preventing the spread of infection.
"Identical soap dispensers were installed
next to the sinks in the consulting room of
each member of a primary care surgery in Cardiff
(two nurses and three doctors). The soap dispensers
were all filled to the same level on the same
day at the start of the study. Over one year,
the amount of soap used and the number of consultations
for each member of the team were recorded to
calculate the ratio of handwashes to patients
seen.
"Nursing staff showed greater attention
to personal hygiene than doctors. The best performing
nurse washed her hands at least twice as often
(or twice as thoroughly) as the best performing
doctor.
"These results will not necessarily reflect
handwashing practices in all teams but form
a basis on which others may conduct similar
audits, suggests the author. At the Christmas
party, guess who will be serving the cake?..."
Evidenced-Based
Practice: Cytotec An OB nurse cares for a
patient who was induced with Cytotec, then decides
to research further into this drug and its rampant,
unethical use in birthing women. Her findings?-
"Women are often unaware of the potential
side effects of this drug, the lack of studies
in its use for inductions, and the disapproval
of the company in its use for this purpose...All
of this adds up to a terrible scenario for American
women. How many more will lose their fertility,
children, or even their lives because of an obstetrician's
desire to be home for dinner?"
See: From
an OB Nurse about Hospital Birth Included:
"My goal is to work as a midwife or doula
in the future and to promote women's choices and
rights in childbearing. I apologize to all those
women for whom I was their 'nurse' and for whom
I assisted the obstetricians in the dehumanizing
of what should have been their most sacred birth."
Home
vs Hospital Birth: Experience AND Safety A
nurse talks about the dangerous illogic of the
hospital way of birth, and cites several references
in defense of homebirth safety. Note that Molly
had a homebirth herself; her story is linked from
the bottom of the article.
Innocent
Ignorance A nurse talks about her own births,
her sadness at how women are treated in birth-
and their resistance to learn how to be safe,
and also about just what it is that's wrong with
most hospital births.
"Frustration!"
-a letter from Molly to Leilah Molly is an
OB nurse who had a homebirth with her second child.
This birth has sensitized her dramatically to
women's true needs, and the atrocities they go
through- even demand- in childbirth.
Dateline
NBC Cytotec Letter by Tracy Brewer, RNC, BSN
Tracy talks about why she can no longer be an
OB nurse:
"I once asked an obstetrician, who was
the medical director of our OB unit, 'Why do
you not obtain informed consent for inductions
from obstetrical patients?' His reply was, 'Well
if we tell them everything then they won't let
us do anything to them.' I no longer practice
as a labor and delivery nurse because I can't
live with the lies and deceptions transposed
to women."
Real
Medical Care A former nurse talks about her
initial faith and trust in the medical system-
and what incidents made her lose that faith, and
leave the medical profession altogether. In it
she says-
"Leaving nursing was a very strange experience.
While everyone else seemed to be absorbing the
lessons like doctrine, I was getting radicalized
instead. And nobody in my regular life believed
what I was telling them about it all!- even
from a person educated and trained on the 'inside,'
people don't want to hear how ugly medicine
is behind the scenes."
Quotes
Flashbacks, and grim reality
"I am a nurse in the Special Care Nursery
at the hospital where I had my c-section so
I am confronted with flashbacks and bad feelings
on a constant basis. It is awful!
"We were called to a 'stat' c-section
the other night for 'severe fetal distress'
and the sOB's started cutting this woman before
the anesthesia was effective...and they did
the old pull and tear maneuver while she could
still feel it also. (It was in the same OR as
I was in to have Alexandra.) I started sweating
and got really anxious, scared, and thought
I was going to throw-up and faint at the same
time. But then I said, 'OK PEOPLE YOU HAVE TO
STOP!! THIS MOM IS SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HER
LUNGS!!!' They did stop and then gave her a
general... but I felt terrorized all over again...
and that poor mother!!"
Denise
Mama to Alexandra
From an obstetrical nurse regarding elective
inductions and cesareans
"Time & again, it's the Mom who has
requested an induction. I always tell them-
when you got pregnant it was for nine months-
not 8 1/2! Of course, we chuckle over the 'disease'
of the week MD's come up with for deciding to
induce- PIH (pregnancy induced hypertension)
and my personal favorite- 'impending' macrosomia
(big baby). Fortunately, we do not use Cytotec,
but Cervidil. Still, inductions definitely lead
to increased epidurals and c-sections. Even
more alarming, lately we have had a few 'elective'
c-sections. I have heard inklings from a couple
MD's that this 'saves' the vagina and prevents
urethral trauma and stress incontinence later
in life! I said to this doc (in the middle of
a c-section, I might add) 'I'd rather pee in
my pants!' (Note that c-section does NOT
preserve the pelvic floor. See this
page for more on this.)
"And would you believe that a female ob/gyn
is giving seminars to docs touting this baloney?
I don't mean to get down on all MD's- most of
the ones I work with are wonderful, but some.....?
So again, I stress that these women MUST educate
themselves (and we RN's must assist in educating
them) on just what the consequences of their
decisions could be. First and foremost WE MUST
REMEMBER that we are their advocates! We have
the knowledge- use it!"
Troubled women doctors, and the nurses who enable
them
"Women doctors have to stop seeing their
male medical education as a way to escape their
feminity. They also have to stop turning that
anger onto other women in their medical practice.
Not all women doctors do this, but I've seen
enough of them to realize it's not all that
unusual. The women doctors I observe who are
either snotty or downright mean (not all women
doctors, by any means, but the nasty ones) see
in other women, a cultural or archetypal or
SOME thing about being a woman that they HATE
and don't wish to identify themselves with.
"And the nurses become enforcers of things
because they themselves are so into toeing the
line- and are really threatened when they have
to care for a person who doesn't. They're like
the teachers' pets trying to make other kids
behave, or like religious staff chastising an
irreverent nonbeliever. It ain't pretty."
-anonymous nurse
A system of bizarre enabling
"I constantly hear- 'Oh doctors are so
smart!' Well, it's true, they usually are, but
so are a lot of other people in a wide array
of professions, just as smart. What doctors
have in common is an interest in the social
prestige that goes along with medicine. About
80% of them are in it for either that reason,
or to prove something to or to please a parent.
(Dad was a doctor, or the parents were proud
of having a physician for a son.) The other
20% are interested in helping people, and in
the biology of health and illness.
"With nurses, many many nurses, and this
sounds really classist and rotten of me, they
are women who come from a lower class who see
nursing as their ticket out of poverty. It's
a 40,000 a year job with a 2 year degree and
they can see themselves doing it. But they are
not the sort of women who are confident enough
to question authority (the medical system) at
all. They range in their level of kindness from
some really sweet women to some real battle
axes, but what they have in common is that they
are absolute conformists.
"So combining the egotistical reasons
that many doctors are doctors at all (as opposed
to studying engineering or international finance
or chemistry), and the lower class roots of
a large portion of the nurses.... see the picture
here- why there will be no change from the inside
out?" -anonymous RN
Cesarean nightmare
"A baby was decapitated in a cesarean
section. The baby was posterior, and it was
a failed mityvac (vacuum), then failed section.
I cannot say what the staff did, because I heard
from a doctor whose partner was present in the
hospital when it happened, but not in the section
itself. It is by far the most horrific story
I have ever heard. I really could not ask more
questions because I was so upset I had to get
up and leave the nurses station. It literally
made me sick. Ever since then I have really
wanted to quit. My OB may have an opening in
a few weeks, if he does then, I will take her
place in his office. The other day I was in
a section and the Ob just took his hands and
tore the woman's uterus.
"It is a rape of women. It is so very
sad that American women are so caught up in
their selfish material lives that they don't
take the time to do any research. They just
blindly follow." -C.L.
From a disillusioned obstetrical nurse
"Is it any wonder why women like me are
leaving the nursing profession and why there
is such a shortage when you have to work with
abusive people as a bystander? My conscious
won't let me do it any longer.
"The doctors who are abusive to women
are also abusive to the people who save their
asses time and again...nurses. There is much
talk in nursing circles about the real reasons
there is a serious shortage of nurses. While
low salaries and long hours are contributors,
so is the abuse nurses sometimes put up with.
It is everywhere. I've gone toe to toe with
these assholes over the years and had my hand
slapped by my bosses and even quit jobs because
I'm not going to let them push me or any one
else around. However, that abuse is much different
than when a woman is in a vulnerable state,
cold and naked in an exam room or when she is
laboring. Nevertheless, their behavior is still
abusive.
"And I find a lot of the language surrounding
birth to be downright demeaning. For example,
I was talking with a pregnant woman last week
who was telling me the only problem's she's
had with this pregnancy was recurrent bartholinitis
(an infection of the Bartholin glands, which
are just inside the vagina and provide lubrication
during sexual arousal). I thought to myself,
why the hell are they named after some doctor
who discovered them. Why aren't they called
'vaginal lubricant glands' or smething like
that? Arrogant, aren't they?" -Karen
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