INOVA Fairfax birth stories?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm scheduled to deliver at INOVA Fairfax and all the reviews scare me because it sounds like they are against natural birth. But, for those who delivered there and wanted a natural birth, did they actually force things against your will? I'm just trying to understand how "anti-natural" are they willing to go? I'm due the end of July so I think it may be too late to change OBs and hospitals.

It really depends on your OB, your nurses, how well you or someone can speak up for you (husband, doula, etc). You know by now that natural births are not impossible there, but by virtue of hospital habit, are not the norm. Talk to your OB (usually the birth conversations come later, but if this is a big deal for you, have it now) having read about natural birth and which parts are most important to you. They will probably require monitoring - do they have telemetry monitoring? Can you do it fifteen minutes of every hour so you can walk around? They don't have tubs, and I have heard it's a struggle with the nurses to get into the shower. Some things might be hospital policy, some things are based on what a doctor has witnessed in her or his career (for example, though the hospital i was going to be at didn't require it, one of my OBs was absolutely inflexible on a saline lock since she said she'd seen one too many badly dehydrated women nearly impossible to get an IV into when they needed it).

It's absolutely not too late to change providers or hospitals, not at all. But if you like your doctor, and you like the hospital, get. a. doula.