. People don't understand this injury and they don't understand what it entails when caring for the child and optimizing their recovery.I just went to the message boards and they are already starting to hop. Check out the posts below. Please voice yourselves for the childrens sake. Perhaps the interest will help generate some future media attention and others will have a chance to share their stories. Let's be sure to clear up some of the myths here as well. Thanks guys! Lisa
http://boards.drphil.com/WebX?14@@.f06b9f7
(just saw on the message board) Speak up...now is your chance!!!!!!
THIS IS WHY I GOT OUT OF OBSTETRICS
duckie7 12.13.04 - 9:43am (13.1.1)
This is the type of discussion that made me get out of Obstetrics....which is too bad, because I think I was very good at it. I was trained very well in all the maneuvers to relieve a shoulder dystocia...and sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't. Sometimes a labor went perfectly, yet there was still a dystocia during delivery and even if you did everything as you should, sometimes there was an injury. Babies are getting bigger and bigger it seems, probably due to the high insulin lifestyle that we lead in this country. But an ultrasound can't always predict accurately the size of a baby at term, and unless you've had a baby before you don't really know what size baby can fit through your pelvis. If you are conservative and do a lot of c-sections, then you're blamed for doing too many c-sections when labor is supposed to be a natural process. And trust me, I've put women through lots of different positions described in the Bradley method (which I used for my own labors, by the way) but sometimes a dystocia can't be relieved. I am not lessening the hardship of anyone who has a child with this...it's a terrible injury that is devastating to the family. And my husband, who is an orthopedic surgeon, deals with this a lot. But you know, it's a little frustrating to lumped into a "Doctors are the enemy" category. There are some bad ones, yes....and there are some good ones that get blamed for the times when a woman doesn't walk out the door with a perfect baby. For all of you who deal with this injury, my thoughts are with you. But a lot of these posts illustrate very well why I no longer deliver babies. Just my humble input.
DON'T TRUST JUST ANY DOCTOR!
kat200 12.12.04 - 9:57pm (13.)
As with any profession, there are good, reputable doctors and bad ones. It is up to you to ask the right questions before trusting your life and or that of your child to just any old doctor.
I'm really getting tired of the increasing amount of horror stories on TLC, Discovery, and talk shows. I don't know about Lisa yet or the rest of you, but on previous shows with horror stories, it was very clear that: the patient did not ask the right questions and just blindly trusted the doctor. Are you board-certified? How many procedues have you done? Have you ever been sued? How many patients have had complications? Is there anything else you would ask if you were in my shoes? By not asking these questions, you are setting yourself up for less than the best and lowering your standards. I have yet to hear of a story where the patient was smart and did all the right things and did not pick someone was not a run-of-the-mill doctor.
I'm not trying to downplay how tragic these injuries are, but any doctor who yanks or pulls on a baby (or uses forceps or vacuum) should not be in practice, as the previous poster said. Oh, and getting stuck can be fixed by getting on your hands and knees--ask a Bradley instructer or midwife.