Natural birth at Sibley?
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Anonymous
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I'm deciding not to go with the midwife practices at rockville and georgetown as its half an hour drive to either and the last baby was born in the car. Sibley is only about 5-8 mins but I have only heard stories about being made to stay in bed on a monitor, baby being given formula without permission etc. I'm not natural birth obsessed but I want to be able to give birth the way that feels right at the time.
Does anyone have any recommendations of supportive OB's or experiences the other way? |
Anonymous
| Well, if your last baby was born in the car, I can't imagine you'll have time for any interventions, even at Sibley -- which is notorious for c-sections. |
Anonymous
| "Notorious for c-sections" .... care to elaborate? |
Anonymous
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I have several friends that have had drug-free births at Sibley and raved about the experience. I hear the nurses are top notch.
Sibley's c-section rate is higher than average. However, it doesn't separate out planned c-sections from emergency ones. There's a certain contingent of "too posh to push" who delivery at Sibley and never go into labor. Thus driving up their c-section stats. It's a lot of rich white ladies up there... |
Anonymous
| Two years ago I had an unmedicated birth at Sibley with no problems. They did intermittent monitoring, but I didn't have to lie in bed--I stood next to the bed instead. I did most of my laboring in the shower on a yoga ball. I had a saline lock but no fluids adminstered. No one ever suggested an epidural. When it came time to push, they asked me what position I wanted to be in. Personally, I found the L&D nurses really supportive--suggesting positions, etc. |
Anonymous
| I had an unmedicated birth at Sibley four weeks ago and had a great experience. The L&D nurses were totally on board with my plan to have an unmedicated birth, I was not stuck on the bed (labored standing, squatting, on the birthing ball, in the bathroom, etc.), and my baby was not given any formula. I had a birth plan that spelled out our wishes, a terrific OB who was supportive and encouraging, and a fantastic doula who made sure to request a nurse who would be supportive of my desire to have an unmedicated birth. I read several negative comments about Sibley on here before giving birth, but my husband and I had a truly wonderful experience there. |
Anonymous
OP- thats great to hear. Do you think that a particular Ob helped or have I only heard the negative stories? |
Anonymous
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By the amount of women screaming when I gave birth there, I'd think that there are more than a few who choose to go unmedicated.
It's notorious for c-sections because of certain doctors and the clientele. Not all doctors are lazy and are interested in doing "emergency" c-sections. I delivered vaginally twice there, and both times had "complications" that probably would have been "emergency" c-sections if I had a more risk adverse OB. |
Anonymous
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I had an unmedicated birth at Sibley last summer. Of course it depends on your practice as to whether or not you end up with a section, but the nurses at Sibley and my practice (Reiter Hill) was totally on board with my plan. I had taken Bradley classes and knew what to expect.
I had a saline lock but like PP no fluids administered. They monitored but intermittently (every 45 minutes they wanted to monitor) and I walked around the L&D floor, and by the time I was 8 cm I was ready to be lying in a bed. They have squat bars they let you use -- I wanted to give birth squatting and tried but lying on my back felt better in the end. The L&D nurses are great at Sibley. It's really post-partum that I wasn't that impressed with. Congrats and good luck with the delivery! |
Anonymous
This, and not even necessarily the doctors, but the fact that the demographics for this hospital skew toward people who ultimately end up having c-sections. I didn't have a natural birth at Sibley, but I did deliver there and I had a fine experience (including a stint in the NICU (aka "special care nursery"). There's nothing glamorous about giving birth or being in a hospital and I don't understand the Sibley hate on DCUM. It ain't gonna be a 5 start hotel. It served its purpose, and I can't complain about my experience. Had some good nurses, and a few really great nurses. The NICU team was fabulous. |
Anonymous
I was a Reiter Hill patient (Dr. Osmun delivered the baby), but frankly, the OB was only there for the pushing stage. |
Anonymous
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I also did a natural at Sibley with Reiter Hill. It went great, there was no push back on epidural or meds or whatever. When my resolve began to weaken in transition, the OB encouraged me by saying there was only an hour to go (turned out to be less!) The nurses did not seem to think there was anything unusual about natural birth, they said several people did it that day. I did have a doula and I think that was helpful, as was the Bradley class. If you aren't taking a class, be sure to read up on the stages of labor, and breastfeeding if you're planning to. I did have a smallish baby in the right position and a relatively short labor, so that stacked the deck in my favor. But I was pretty half-assed about the Bradley exercises and stuff. Postpartum and lactation was also fine. I let them take the baby to the nursery at one point in the night, and I don't have any reason to believe they gave her formula-- they came and woke me up when she was hungry.
If I were to do it over, I wouldn't change anything about the delivery. I would have gotten the lactation consultants right away to get started on the right foot-- I didn't realize you can call them as much as you want, you don't have to wait for an actual problem to develop. I was also a tad annoyed that the discharge paperwork took a really long time, and sometimes when they would take the baby to for a test or something, she would be gone longer than they promised. But overall I had a very positive experience at Sibley. I'm not a Reiter fan so I switched to GW midwives, but if it weren't for that factor, I would do Sibley again no problem. |
Anonymous
| OP- Thanks everyone, I'll call Reiter Hill |
Anonymous
| OP, you just have to be your own advocate for unmedicated births at Reiter Hill. |
Anonymous
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Reiter Hill is not especially known for natural births. I had one at Sibley with them (as I mentioned above) and they were minimally supportive. They didn't try to talk me out of it or pressure me during labor, but didn't really provide any coaching or support, just let me figure it out on my own with the Bradley class and doula. And I had a pretty easy labor so I don't know what they might have done had it gone badly.
My point is, you can have a natural birth at Sibley with a lot of different OBs, so you might want to find one that is more actively supportive of natural birth. I did not like some of the OBs at Reiter Hill, and they are very bad about prescriptions on the weekends, which was a big deal to me because I mastitis multiple times. There are lots of DCUM threads about Reiter Hill pro and con-- I remember researching various OBs and thinking that they all have very mixed reviews, so I might as well just pick one that's in a convenient location! |