I was physically restrained during my delivery and forced to labor in a position against my clearly expressed wishes by a student midwife (but I didn’t know she was a student because I was deep in labor). Then later on I was verbally and physically abused by one of my L and D nurses (eg given an extremely aggressive cervical check that caused me to cry). Then when I complained about her to the midwife on call and learned that the L and D nurses weren’t even supposed to do that, that nurse was informed of my complaint and was permitted to keep caring for me, which meant she treated me worse. She yelled at my husband, forced me to lay in my own feces (during pushing) and waited a very long time to help clean me up so every one in the room - myself included - had to smell and look at my BM. In addition, that nurse and the other student midwife and another nurse at one point all got together at the foot of my bed and were whispering about me and laughed at me. That horrible nurse also told me I wasn’t going to be able to deliver vaginally when I was literally hours into pushing. I could go on but that gives you a sense of the mistreatment I experienced. Needless to say, that created a profound sense of flight/fright/freeze for me at a time when I was trying to labor unmedicated, it completely stalled my labor, and likely was the cause of a lot of medical interventions that were ultimately needed to get my baby out. (The irony is though, is that in a multiple day hospital stay I also had doctors, nurses, and other providers who were excellent, caring, and extremely compassionate so the juxtaposition of them in contrast to the other providers was extremely jarring and unexpected.)

The care of these 3 horrible providers was shocking to me, as me and my DH were honestly quite terrified during my complicated delivery and were trying to be kind and respectful to everyone. We literally felt like our child’s life and my life were in their hands and were so stunned when this happened that we were basically in shock and did not respond well in the moment to advocate the way we normally would if someone physically harmed or mistreated us. No one — and I mean no one — in your birth class or anywhere else in your life can prepare you for how to respond to medical abuse and mistreatment while you are in the middle of labor. And I say that as someone who was working in health care at the time of that birth.

I ended up with - not surprisingly - a raging case of PTSD after this experience that took multiple years to treat. I also have a lot of medical trauma and it took me a very long time to even be able to go near this hospital without having a panic attack and crying. Medical environments are also still very triggering for me, as are pelvic exams.

This experience happened at a well known DC hospital that many people rave about. I eventually made a detailed complaint to the hospital about my experience and got a response from them, and I know changes were made to some degree, but in hindsight I sometimes wonder if I should have pursued litigation or gone to the board of nursing about these providers. I was too traumatized to pursue that route at the time, and I’m past the statute of limitation now, but the experience really scarred me and it’s honestly something I don’t think I will ever be fully over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you read on this board you’ll see women being told not to expect physicians to refer to them by their name, and that they don’t have a right to consent to testing. None of this surprises me in the slightest.

You and this comment are exactly why women can be not taken seriously. Uh no ma’am! That’s not what that thread was about. You being a bold-faced liar does more damage to women than any one medical professional.

What actually facilitates abuse is women who make excuses for crappy doctors. Your comment is just whining and doesn't say why they comment you're reacting to is wrong. You must be that MD who thinks you can order drug testing without informing patients because you're so precious and busy.

Anonymous wrote:If you read on this board you’ll see women being told not to expect physicians to refer to them by their name, and that they don’t have a right to consent to testing. None of this surprises me in the slightest.

You and this comment are exactly why women can be not taken seriously. Uh no ma’am! That’s not what that thread was about. You being a bold-faced liar does more damage to women than any one medical professional.

If you read on this board you’ll see women being told not to expect physicians to refer to them by their name, and that they don’t have a right to consent to testing. None of this surprises me in the slightest.

Oh yeah, 16:15 again, forgot to mention, I had post-partum hemorrhage and endometritis undiagnosed for a year, despite going to many doctors, ERs, three saline sonos, etc. The ob who butchered my uterus in the 2nd C sec medically abandoned me.

I had a pregnancy induced without my consent. I had a huge cystic C-section isthmocele my incompetent RE didn't detect on a saline sono, then he casually blurted out, "You have a C-section isthmocele, you need a C-section" as he squirted in my embryo.

It got worse from there. He realized he F-ed up and horded my records. My next providers, I think they knew it was there and thought they could safely manage it by bullying me into a repeat C, but it was so thin it was starting to spontaneously rupture. If I hadn't called the hospital and asked to be seen by an obstetrician at a BPP then pitched a fit to her my baby could have died.

I asked one doctor if I needed to take my pants off for an ultrasound and he said "No, I'm keeping mine on." The scan for the thinness of the C-sec scar is transvaginal, so I did need to take my pants off.

It's been two years and I am still not over it. I'm going to the police about the RE and asking them to charge him with sexual assault.

Abuse of women is sooooooo common. It is really really scary how incompetent and unethical doctors are. Very shocking and scary experience. It made my world an uglier place.

I found out recently the hospital where I gave birth had an anesthesiologist masturbating in women's faces and an obstetrician who was inducing women without their consent to scam the insurance billing system (more money for weekend deliveries when he was on call).

She's a Mom that died on a OR table 10 hours after she started complaining of pain post c section.

Last year I had a D&C and began getting severe pain post procedure. I sat in the ER for over 6 hours at INOVA before they discovered I was bleeding internally and took me back to surgery. By that point morphine was not touching the pain and my uterus was the size of a 20 week pregnancy. The U/S was the worst. Kept me screaming in pain trying to visualize my right ovary. I definitely could have lost my uterus or life. Fwiw I'm not a minority and still wasn't taken seriously for what was pretty obviously internal bleeding.

A kid came in with me having a cut foot and was taken back before me.