Foxhall or Bloom -- would either accomodate a female only practitioner birth (including Dr. Green)?

[Anonymous]

You could consider Anita Sikand - she's solo and delivered both of my kids. I believe there is another woman who covers for her if she is out on vacation, but otherwise she would be the one at the birth. She has an office in the West End area but delivers at Inova Fairfax.

That being said, it is also good to come to terms with the idea that you might not have a lot of control. My second child came very quickly, and the hospital on-call doctor (male) was in charge until Dr. Sikand could get to the hospital (she made it just before the birth). I also had a male nurse for that birth. If things are moving quickly, you won't have time to ask for a staffing change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am sure you have a valid reason for wanting this.

Foxhall has a ton of good female OBs and you would have many strong options.

As others have pointed out though, you can’t help who is on call when you go into labor. So, you would need to discuss induction early on with your provider and make sure they would be willing to accommodate. Be up front about this being a huge concern for you.

When you schedule induction you get a calendar showing who is on call each day. You’d need to make sure only females were on call for 3-5 days.

All of this would help but there is still a chance you go into labor early, or a doctor subs out, or you need to be in the hospital longer than planned. For this reason I do think you should explore the therapy options recommended as well, to help you cope with those possibilities. Good luck to you!

+1. Schedule the induction. I had a miserable experience and was unable to give birth until a female OB was available. My body regardless of induction method would not allow until I had someone I trusted and felt comfortable with. I also have a history of SA. It was not respected by the staff at the hospital at all and I was assaulted by a male staff member at the hospital while there for my induction while waiting for my husband to arrive. 6mo+ later I am still in chonic physical pain from what he did (resulting in nerve damage) and am receiving ongoing medical care.

[Anonymous]

You are entitled to want this for yourself and to take appropriate steps, and people saying otherwise aren’t coming from a place of knowledge.

Yes, in an emergency, you may be cared for by a man but that is true for anything— if you have a car accident your EMT might be male, but in a situation where you can plan in advance, you absolutely should do so.

If you’re open to INOVA Fairfax, INOVA group for women is all-female. Ask for an appointment with Dr. Anderson I found her the best informed about patient sensitivities, and if I hadn’t gone into spontaneous labor she would have been in charge of my induction. The rest of the providers have varying levels of knowledge about sensitivities but as others have mentioned a doula may be helpful here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is something to work through in therapy because the only way forward is acceptance that you can’t control your provider, birth, and birth outcome. Much of pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum is a roll of the dice and you have to adapt and roll with it - same goes for the rest of parenting. There are no female only practices that you can go to (there used to be only one in DC that was only two women and they did not take insurance and they delivered at Sibley - but they closed a few years back) and any practice will have male OBs.

As a trauma survivor, I suggest the book, When Survivors Give Birth. I also suggest training your husband to be a very verbal, vocal, and direct advocate for you and to have him handle telling people if you are a SA survivor if you are comfortable with that. I also suggest you learn to be an advocate for yourself as well. Personally, I had to tell each provider at the hospital and my OB about my trauma history. I had to ask each provider to introduce them self to me before caring for me. If they just ignored me and went to take blood or whatever I would say, hi, who are you? Can you tell me what you’ll be doing before you care for me? Sibley has gotten very good about having their care providers introduce themselves first but sometimes they forget. I also asked it to be noted in my chart that I had a trauma history and I discussed it without going into much detail to my providers and nurses and asked them to alert their colleagues when I went into labor and delivery. I also opted for a scheduled C section. Having good pain control is also extremely helpful, and I highly recommend an epidural. Learning to be an advocate for yourself and your child is a skill you will need the rest of your life and while it is difficult it’s not something you can avoid. A female provider is also no guarantee of a good experience. The female OB who sutured my 3rd degree tear was a total jerk
Who kept asking me, why are you screaming? Well it was b/c the local she had given me wasn’t working, and my tears were extremely Deep. Meanwhile my male OB with my second was way more gentle with pelvic exams and caring about my pain. Female gender does not equal good care. Also getting used to everyone in masks was important for me since that was a huge trigger. Again - therapy can help.
More caring and gentle

Weird, weird response. I’m a sexual assault survivor and my therapist was the one who helped me arrange that my gynecological care and all birth and delivery would be minimally re-triggering, including by having all women carrying out my care. The only man who set foot in my presence for the entire time I was in the hospital and all prenatal care was my spouse.

Therapy very rarely reaches people to learn how to ignore their needs.

[Anonymous]

This thread is a bit old, but in my recent stay at GW, I noticed some of the delivery rooms have signs for no students and only female practitioners. No idea what happens if you have an emergency and the nearest OB is male, but the care I've had here has been incredible all around

[Anonymous]

I would suggest not delivering at Sibley because they go on diversion a few times a year (they get full) and even in labor you'll be redirected to another hospital and get whatever provider is on call that day/night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is a bit old, but in my recent stay at GW, I noticed some of the delivery rooms have signs for no students and only female practitioners. No idea what happens if you have an emergency and the nearest OB is male, but the care I've had here has been incredible all around

Yep, GW is super accommodating of both these preferences. I had a "female providers only" sign placed on my door. They had no problem honoring it--the chief resident on call was male, but they just had him care for other patients. I had the female attending and female resident.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is something to work through in therapy because the only way forward is acceptance that you can’t control your provider, birth, and birth outcome. Much of pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum is a roll of the dice and you have to adapt and roll with it - same goes for the rest of parenting. There are no female only practices that you can go to (there used to be only one in DC that was only two women and they did not take insurance and they delivered at Sibley - but they closed a few years back) and any practice will have male OBs.

As a trauma survivor, I suggest the book, When Survivors Give Birth. I also suggest training your husband to be a very verbal, vocal, and direct advocate for you and to have him handle telling people if you are a SA survivor if you are comfortable with that. I also suggest you learn to be an advocate for yourself as well. Personally, I had to tell each provider at the hospital and my OB about my trauma history. I had to ask each provider to introduce them self to me before caring for me. If they just ignored me and went to take blood or whatever I would say, hi, who are you? Can you tell me what you’ll be doing before you care for me? Sibley has gotten very good about having their care providers introduce themselves first but sometimes they forget. I also asked it to be noted in my chart that I had a trauma history and I discussed it without going into much detail to my providers and nurses and asked them to alert their colleagues when I went into labor and delivery. I also opted for a scheduled C section. Having good pain control is also extremely helpful, and I highly recommend an epidural. Learning to be an advocate for yourself and your child is a skill you will need the rest of your life and while it is difficult it’s not something you can avoid. A female provider is also no guarantee of a good experience. The female OB who sutured my 3rd degree tear was a total jerk
Who kept asking me, why are you screaming? Well it was b/c the local she had given me wasn’t working, and my tears were extremely Deep. Meanwhile my male OB with my second was way more gentle with pelvic exams and caring about my pain. Female gender does not equal good care. Also getting used to everyone in masks was important for me since that was a huge trigger. Again - therapy can help.
More caring and gentle

Wow, there are actually a lot of female-only practices in this area and so you absolutely 100% can control whether your provider is a woman. It may require going slightly farther to a less convenient practice but if it is very important to you it is within your power. I myself preferred a female provider and went with a practice where all the doctors were female and got my wish. The care was also excellent, and don't let anyone tell you a women-only practice can't be high quality. Therapy just because someone wants a female doctor to attend her birth? Lots and lots of people have this preference, it's not a mental illness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest not delivering at Sibley because they go on diversion a few times a year (they get full) and even in labor you'll be redirected to another hospital and get whatever provider is on call that day/night.

I’m pretty sure all hospitals do at some point. You can see local hospital statuses here: https://www.miemssalert.com/chats/Default.aspx?hdRegion=5

Labor and delivery would be slightly different because it’s not part of the main ER. But I’m sure all LD wards at some point are full right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a variety of reasons, I'm not comfortable with an male OB, but these two practices are the most convenient. Has anyone had success with them accommodating this type of situation (whether SA related or religious)?

Good lord, you can't be serious!

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry about your SA, op. It’s been years but I’ve heard great things from friends who delivered at Reiter Hill and they have a number of women.

You may not know that you can make consult appointments to interview OBs - you could do this and ask about this and see whether they can try to accommodate. I needed a new Ob when pregnant with my first and interviewed three different doctors.

You can ask them, but I think scheduled induction might make sense. With my first my OB was actually male, but he was not the doctor who delivered me or the Ob doing rounds / checking patients. I ended up not seeing him until my 6 week post-partum checkup. With both the anesthesiologist was male. I don’t know if you have an early delivery how much you’d be able to have a ob (or anesthesiologist if you want one) other than whoever happens to be available. These would be good reasons to interview a few OBs.