Comments on: Angie’s List Induction-Turned-Cesarean Commercial

By: Jeanne Batacan

Jeanne Batacan — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:43:27 +0000

Of course this happens. Research has shown it with inductions and cesareans at thier lowest on weekends and higher around holidays.

The research for Friedmans Curve is 60 years old and was done with high-risk as well as low-risk women. Newer, better studies show that normal labor takes longer than Friedman reported but, unfortunately the outdated information still stands. Some CB educators still use his famous chart in class…YIKES!

By: tracy hartley

tracy hartley — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:00:52 +0000

I was with a client once whose doctor walked in and announced that she had been pushing for ‘too long’ and needed a c-section right away. The baby looked great on the monitor and my client had only been pushing for 22 (yes, twenty-two) minutes! I reminded my client’s partner to ask for more time, which he did, and the doctor looked at his watch and said that he had an important meeting to go to and that if he left for the meeting, he wouldn’t be able to return for about 1-1/2 hours. They said that was perfectly fine … and the doctor got back just in time to catch the baby! He was perfectly happy to do a c-section so he could go to his meeting and, if they hadn’t had a doula, they probably would have gone along with the c-section and afterwards told everyone that their wonderful doctor saved their baby!

In 400+ births, I’ve seen things like this way too many times!!! Doc99 — you might be one of the ‘good’ doctors who would never do this, but there really are doctors out there who practice this way! Sad, but true.

By: Rose

Rose — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:23:37 +0000

Speaking of Friedman’s Curve, if you read his book you will find that of the thousands of labors he charted (which progressed all over the place) he picked the 200 which fit a curve best. Then he tightened up even those dots to create the “ideal labor curve” that all women were condemned to follow henceforth.

His goal was to avoid women laboring days perhaps over-medicated or with a baby in an impossible to deliver position but the plan went haywire. For decades now it has caused untold suffering for many women.

By: Robin

Robin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:54:12 +0000

Rebecca, I don’t doubt that the scenario you paint happens at all, and I’ve seen it. My point was that I don’t think that most of these types of cesareans are happening where a doctor comes in dressed in golf clothes saying he has to go golf. Even when it’s something personally pressing like the doctor who wanted to go to his daughter’s birthday party – he was claiming maternal and fetal well being – from today’s NIH VBAC Consensus conference. Did you by any chance catch that conference? The webcast was recorded, look for it soon. I think you would appreciate it and the L&D nurses who spoke out at the end.

By: Rebecca M.

Rebecca M. — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:33:31 +0000

If Doc99 and Robin think this is all make-believe, they have never talked to an L&D nurse. It’s no big secret that many doctors, if given the opportunity, will shorten their work day/night by scheduling inductions and c-sections early in the day and early in the work week (fewer interruptions on the weekend!) and by arbitrarily setting time limits for women whose labor doesn’t progress at a “textbook” (aka average) rate. The doctor comes in and says “your baby is too big” or “you aren’t going to dilate anymore” and orders a c-section — ignoring the fact that very few women will track perfectly on that labor curve, and many variations (including periods of “stalled” labor) are still considered normal. The most common cause for a c-section is not a high-risk pregnancy, or malpositioning, even fetal distress — it’s “failure to progress” i.e., failure to wait. OBs have finally a way to reduce the unpredictability and inconsistency of their work schedules, to the detriment of the women and babies who are suffering these unnecesareans.

By: Robin

Robin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:08:26 +0000

Hey Doc99,

I think this is a swipe at low hanging fruit, though I don’t find it humorous. Though I do believe that some women feel this is the truth, even if their doctor’s didn’t say it this way. So the real problem here is miscommunication between a doctor and patient or even a midwife.

Would love to open the dialogue on how to improve patient/practitioner communication so that this type of scenario never existed, even if only in someone’s mind.

By: Doc99

Doc99 — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:51:27 +0000

Hiring paid actors to perform a tragically humorous script is truly taking a gratuitous swipe at very low hanging fruit at the expense of hard-working Ob-Gyn’s. I’m quite certain the events depicted are more an embellishment of an amalgam of rants by the dissatisfied.

Freedom of speech is wonderful. Calumny, however, is not. I’d be interested in the substantive details here as well as the findings of the State’s Misconduct Investigation which undoubtedly resulted from the outrageous conduct depicted – of course, if it in fact occurred.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:25:02 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by KushielsMoon: RT @Unnecesarean I don’t know how I missed this commercial. Thanks, D’Anne, for the tip! http://ow.ly/14u1m...

By: Echo

Echo — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 04:51:55 +0000

Awesome. Just awesome.

By: Georgia

Georgia — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 04:01:32 +0000

woah dude! That is bad lol..but kinda funny…but yeah, bad! yeesh