How were you treated at the hospital giving birth to your premature baby?

Krissy - posted on 12/08/2010

I hear yeas down here the doctors well almost doctors there still in training where horrible i would tell the stories but its just so long...but i ended up suing them there was one that i said i didn't want checking to see how far i was and did it anyways and they forced me to take med that in the end could have really hurt my baby and they Broke my water and induced me BY MISTAKE...Image someone who your suppose to trust ha..

Iysha - posted on 12/07/2010

I loved the hospital i was at. one doctor pissed me off when i went into preterm labor the first time. i didnt know i was in labor but had passed a fleshy clot looking thing and went to the hospital because my doctor's office was closing. The doctor at the hospital said, if you were bleeding, why didnt you get here sooner. i had told her that my doctor said that if i was only bleeding a little than not to worry. and she replied, "young girls never know what to do." i felt like punching that woman!! but she was only my doctor for the day and the other ones were very supportive and helpful and explained what they were doing and why and explained all the tests and the different out comes and what those outcomes would mean for me and my baby. i was there for 2 weeks and then left and was home for 4 days before i went into labor again. While there, my nurse was Alicia, she was the BEAT nurse in the entire world! The doctor introduced the NICU doctor to me and i had 3 nurses and 2 doctors there along with my MIL, mom, and fiance. They told me that if my daughter cried, she should be fine...that the most important thing would be that her lungs are developed. if there was something wrong, she would be taken to the NICU right away, if she appeared fine, then i could hold her for a minute before they take her away. She did cry, and was fine so i held her for a bit before they had to take her off to the NICU and she stayed there for 17 days. i was allowed there in the NICU with her day or night for as long as I wanted and got tickets to use in the cafeteria. Everyone there was very nice and one nurse gave me a baby name book to pick out a middle name for my daughter when i was on bed rest. one gave me guy advice when i was upset with my fiance and got me a frozen yogurt to make me feel better. I feel like i got the best treatment ever and will not have another baby in any other hospital. if i'm almost due and in another state, i will fly and stay with my mom until i have the baby in that hospital. i am not joking....even the food was great. I thought I was going to have a c-section, but the doctor said no, that i was going to deliver vaginally...she was very to the point and extreemly informative, which i liked. I dont like doctors to be all caring and sympathetic, they're there to make sure things go the way they are supposed to and the nurses are there to help and make you comfortable...in my opinion, i know some people perfer the opposite when it comes to a doctor. I do remember the nurse telling me the worst possible outcomes and it did freak me out and i did cry and they gave me a minute to get my thoughts in order and get ready to deliver. It seemed insensitive at the moment because those things most likely wouldnt happen but they have to inform the patient by law. I understood that at the time but, I was still scared.

Melody - posted on 12/02/2010

I feel extremely lucky with how I was treated. I had just moved to what I consider a smaller town/city not super little but smaller then what I came from and had only met my OB doctor once before giving birth at 35 1/2wks. I had been experiencing some pain but it was no where close to what I expected for contractions and so I went through with the pain for 2 days until my husband got really worried and took me. They hooked me up to all the monitors and what not and gave me a shot to stop my contractions, my water hadn't broken yet. We were in the hospital most of the night and they released me to go home and put me on bedrest. I stayed on bedrest for the following day and when my husband got home we had dinner went to bed and the contractions started right up. We went to the hospital at 12:30 and I was admitted taken to a room and they checked me and said I was delivering that night/morning and took off to get everything ready. So within a few short hours our daughter was born and the hospital we were at was not able to treat premature babies by no means so as soon as she was born they whisked her away to await a transport team to take her to a larger hospital better equipped to care for her. Before they took her away the transport team brought me our daughter in an incubator while they had me sign papers and described everything that was going to happen after they left us. Once she arrived at Balboa hospital I was instantly receiving phone calls and updates from her doctor and nurse on how she was doing.
The care for my daughter was perfect, mine not so much. After she left they had me clean myself up and took me into another room where a mom and her baby were, the room was supposed to be for moms and their babies and I didnt have mine. It was the most horrible thing, to watch and see another mom interact with her baby and not have mine own. Within 14hrs of being admitted and giving birth I was released from the hospital. I had no idea you could be released that early. My doctor told me I couldnt see my daughter until she was released from Balboa hospital... needless to say I never listened to a word he said. What mother in her right mind would not go see her baby, who would listen when told to stay away. So my husband drove me the 1.5 hrs to go see our baby girl, the drs treating her were so shocked that I had been released and had told me that they had requested to have me transfered and be a patient at their hospital so they could make sure I was okay and that my baby and I adjusted well and told me that my doctor had refused. But the people at Balboa were wonderful and set up a room for my husband and I to stay in close by to the NICU and our daughter. The nurses and doctors there were absolutely wonderful to our daughter and us. We had an every 3 hr feeding schedule and the nurses saw at least me if not both of us at every feeding and were so shocked that even after just giving birth that morning that I was there every feeding. They were so helpful and supportive through the whole process. Of course we had the one nurse we didnt like but I think that is fairly normal. She kept telling us things that were different from all the other nurses so we just decided not to listen to her. Our little girl was only supposed to stay four days but the final night before discharge we were told she experienced a bout of sleep apnea so our stay was prolonged another 5 days. Several of the other nurses didnt understand why they were making us stay longer, they had never noticed any problems with her. But I didnt care we stayed 5 more days. We are new parents with no family nearby so all the help and getting adjusted to being a parent was so beneficial and worthwhile. I don't think I would ever change the hospital experience for my little girl.

Wendy - posted on 12/01/2010

I was treated a little bad too, I asked for no drugs but they kept refusing my request and pumped drugs into me through a drip and then pethadine needles and held gas up to my face, I got very pissed off. I eventually went for an Emergency Csection and I was so doped up when they brought the papers to me to sign I think I just scribbled LOL. Anyway I saw the nurse a month later who made me sign the paper, she was at the train station and I asked her why I had all those drugs when I asked them not to give them to me, and she replied, "Oh thats how we get our patiants to go agree to a c section." I was not impressed. Espeacially when it came to all the jabbing with trying to find veins for the drip and becuase I was 16 at the time and not married to my partner, I felt like they treated me with a whole lot of disrespect due to my age! One nurse made that very clear by shaking her head at me and saying that Im too young to know what to do with a child.

Cheryl - posted on 11/30/2010

wow that is horrible. I live in a small town and at first was being treated by an OB locally. I had 2 incidents where I was bleeding in the hospital. She told me I had placenta previa but nothing about it or anything that should be done just in case. After a couple visits I was really uncomfortable with her, I made sure I got transferred to a high risk ob and the childrens hospital. My first appt the dr explained placenta previa and all the risks and what needed to be done. He explained to me also the risks of my blood pressure rising. He started treatment right away for giving me steroid injections to help develope the babies lungs. It was 4 needles in 2 days. When I went for the last needle I was admitted due to high blood pressure. 2 days later I started not feeling good. The doctor came in to tell me I had pre eclampsia and my kidneys were failing that I needed to get my husband to the hosiptal. It was an hour and a half drive. The doctors and nurses were really supportive and understanding I was so lucky. The next day they made sure my husband and I knew exactly what was going on. She was born in the afternoon. Luckily they kept explaining everything to us she was in the hospital for 3 and a half months. They told me that if I would have stayed locally most likely The baby and I would not have made it.

Jess - posted on 11/29/2010

My hospital experience was horrid ! I had Pre E and it wasn't detected or treated for several weeks. It would discovered when I was 35 wks along and I was induced immediately. I really should have had a C section, but the hospital was to unstaffed as it was the evening before a public holiday.

So I was induced and moved OUT of the birthing suit and taken to the maternity ward, I was left there on my own with 1 nurse who had goodness knows how many other patients. The drugs needed to stay in overnight to start working, so the next morning when they couldn't find a doctor to check my progress a midwife was called upstairs to do the doctors job. The midwife accidentally broke my waters removing the drugs. At this point they said I would be taken back to the birthing suits, but 3 hours later I was still upstairs, no pain relief, no midwife or doctor. Just 1 nurse who still had other patients and their babies to take care of.

I was moved downstairs as I was transitioning into the the pushing phase, I was taken through the halls of this hospital in full labour in a wheel chair I was trying so hard not to scream in agony and anger !!!

The midwife I got was so rude, she wasn't ready for me and had a list of things she "needed to do" and then she would check my progress. I could feel myself pushing but couldn't stop it, she kept yelling at me to stop and to stop screaming. I had BEGGED for the epidural, but they waited to long to call for it and it was too late. The midwife finally decided to take a look at me and realised my daughters head was stuck on my cervix and with each push my cervix was stretching and was about to tear. She shoved her whole hand inside of me, used her fingers to grab my cervix and pull it back off my daughters head. I cant even think of a word that describes how much that hurt, I was screaming so much, she hadn't even warned me that she was going to do that ! She grabbed my face with her free hand *because the other one was still rammed inside of me* and was screaming and spitting in my face, she was yelling at me to shut up.

I was thinking to myself, "omg that women is NOT delivering my baby" and next thing I know a new midwife is in the room, she was so lovely. She realised I was in a lot of pain and gave me the gas and then realised my daughters head was crowning... so much for don't push !

She told me to push whenever I was ready, 3 pushes later and Ava was born weighing 4 pounds 4 ounces. She was taken to special care for a week, had a feeding tube inserted that she didn't need and was actually done wrong so every time they fed her they risked drowning her. Ava ended up pulling the whole tube out herself !

The special care staff were rude, they moved my daughter without telling me, they rarely had the same nurses twice ! They didn't know or use Ava's name, they lied to us, refused to let us speak to her doctors, they threatened to get a restraining order on us when we told them we wanted to take our perfectly healthy baby home and to add insult to injury they reported us to child protective services and told them we were drug addicts. Never touched a drug in my life, I don't smoke or drink. I was so hurt. We were cleared immediately the social worker told me she didn't even know why the hospital had waisted her time.

The hospital was awful, I would NEVER have another baby there. After Ava was born and taken to special care, I was left to walk myself back to the maternity ward, tell them who I was and give them the details about my daughter. I never had a single follow up with any doctors or nurses, not even to check my stitches. I stayed for a further 3 days, the often forgot to bring me meals so my partner had to go buy me food all the time. It really was like staying in a hotel room, just coming and going as you please.

I've found it really hard to get over this experience, and not all mums understand the pain of a bad birth experience. I've found talking about it helps a lot !

Wanda - posted on 11/26/2010

That's terrible. Considering the circumstances, I'd have to say that I had a good hospital experience. I was admitted to hospital at 25 weeks b/c I was bleeding. I went to our local hospital where I was immediately taken to the maternity ward. I was given a thorough exam and told that I'd started to dialate and that I'd need to be transfered to another hospital. Our local has a level 2 NICU (or Special Care Nursery) and if my son was to be born soon he would need a level 3 NICU. I was transfered to a hospital in the city and got great care there as well. My son was born 4 days later by emergency C-section (he wasn't strong enough and in the wrong position to survive natural birth) and was in their NICU until he was 3 months, then transfered back to our local hospital for another 3 weeks before coming home. From start to finish, I had great nurses and doctors. I was always told what was going on and why.

Rachel - posted on 11/25/2010

I was lucky to some extent, although with what I know now I would do things different. my water broke at 34 weeks and my doctors let me just stay in the hospital for another week and a half, because I never went in to labour. they ended up inducing me because I might get an infection... with no evidence that I had any sort of issues they induced me... I had gone with an all woman's doctor group... however when I was induced somehow I got they GUY that was on call and his student...

I was really lucky I knwo that my son was breathing ok... he was a bit grunty as they said... so he was put in the special care nursery. the hospital discharged me 3 days later with him still there... he never had much trouble brestfeeding, for the first bit I was pumping and would give him a bottle after he fed to make sure he had enough. this though caused me issues because when we left I was producing 3 times the amount he would be able to eat.
we had one nurse who was amazing who would sit down with my husband and tell him what was going on but there were several bad ones too ... one old woman would strip him naked to weigh him... then 3 minutes later take his temp... then says he may have to go back in the incubater because he wasnt' holding his temp... (well strip me naked wait a few minutes and I will be cold too)
then I had a nurse talk to me in the hall saying that if my son didnt' start to gain faster they would have to put a feeding tube in... he never had one and never needed one... (that was enough to make me crazy just a few days after giving birth, allong with the 'care by parent room" they had that had no windows and was about the size of a jail cell) the nurses called me every 3 hours which happened to coenside with the shift change so they would try to hurry my feeding of my son ... and because of trying to feed him on such a schedule that was convienient for the nurses I was not able to feed him when he was actually hungry, once we were home he ate better when he was actually hungry and waking up on his own. he did get jaundice and was put under the lights but luckly that was the only problem that he had. finally 7 days later they released him ... they had kept him so long because he was just below the jaundice line... which is easily fixed with sunlight...
so other than desperatly wanting to go home and take my baby who was perfectally fine and a couple bad nurses who seemed ot want ot make my life miserable (teling me things that wernt' true) it wasn't terrible but most certainly not how I wanted to give birth. the doctor let me take him home earlier than he had wanted for my mental health supposedly :P

Cat - posted on 11/20/2010

I'm so sorry to hear about your experience! It's hard enough having a preemie, but to have an experience like that is heartbreaking. :(
I don't really have many complaints regarding the hospital we were in. We were actually planning to have a waterbirth at the local birth center, but when I started having contractions at 27 weeks, my midwife asked that I meet her at the hospital she had privileges in just in case I needed an IV for fluids. Lo and behold, I was already 5cm (I thought she was joking - I was in almost no real pain and figured it HAD to be a false alarm). The hospital staff and my midwives were wonderful. I was lucky enough to be at a large hospital with the best NICU in the state. My midwife encouraged me the entire time. She got the OBs to back off when I refused pain meds during labor - baby was feet-first, so a c-section was inevitable unless she turned around (she didn't), so I suppose they figured I wouldn't want to feel anything.
I did have one OB who said he "had" to examine me right as I was about to have a contraction. Not sure why he couldn't wait, since DD was in no distress at all and I'd had no changes, so he was fishing around my vagina during a contraction - much more painful than the entire labor put together. Then he said "Well, I'm glad I got to do the exam during a contraction so that I could feel how strong they are." I wanted to kick him in the face, lol.
But aside from that guy, the L&D team was WONDERFUL.
The neonatology team patiently answered my questions and kept me informed after my daughter's birth and throughout her NICU stay. We did have one NICU nurse who told me I "wasn't allowed" to hold my daughter one night when I came in for my usual visit -she was stable and had had no changes, so this was pretty much straight BS, so I grabbed the nurse manager AND the neonatologist on rotation so that they could explain to me why I couldn't hold my child. That nurse didn't get put on duty with my daughter again and I kangarooed my daughter 10 minutes later. ;-)
My only real complaints were when she was transferred to a step-down unit that was closer to our home. The hospital and NICU itself were both smaller, which was fine, but the nursing team was less comfortable with being as direct about my daughter's care. They didn't seem as supportive of parents asking questions and exploring alternatives if they didn't agree with an assessment. Since I come from a medical family, this didn't sit too well with any of us.
They also kept DD in the NICU longer than would have been considered medically necessary at the other hospital. While I'm glad that they wanted to do what they felt was erring on the side of safety, we all know that hospitals are breeding grounds for viruses and whatnot. Considering H1N1 was going around and there had been a few MSR scares within the NICU itself, I was QUITE eager to get her home, however the doctor was excessively hesitant.
So yeah, that pretty much sums up our stay, I believe :)

Kera - posted on 11/19/2010

I had my daughter at 30 weeks. There were no complications during the pregnancy, so when I went to the hospital complaining of "Braxton Hicks" the nurses checked me and put me on a gurney before saying anything to my husband or to me. Next thing I know, I'm in the delivery room where they're asking me all sorts of questions and then ten minutes later telling me to push. My daughter came out with an Apgar score of 8 and was whisked away before I could hold her. Frankly, I was more stunned and tired than anything.

The next couple of days, the NICU staff didn't hesitate to tell me what a horrible mother I was for delivering so early. They checked all the books, gave my little girl every anti-biotic known to man and still never found an answer to why she was born 2 and half weeks early. After she had stayed for one month, they let her come home with me and stopped the guilt trip. Seriously, I wish I could go back to the Birth Center, but I'm high risk, so they won't treat me.

Maybe I should just give birth at home, and go "oops" when the doctors come in! LOL!

Schmoopy - posted on 11/13/2010

Your story sounds so familiar. I was at a small hospital when i was 28 weeks pregnant. I guess I looked like a walking lawsuit to them, so they "strongly advised" me to take an 1.5-hour ambulance ride to the nearest major medical center. I reluctantly followed their advice and went into labor immediately after I arrived. They were able to stave off my labor for another week, but my baby was ultimately born at 29 weeks. She wasn't breathing when she was born, so they whisked her off and intubated her. I didn't see her for several hours afterwards - I didn't even get to hold her.

The worst offenders were the docs in the small hospital. They were so afraid of treating me, they talked me into that treacherous ambulance ride. I'm sure I would have still had a preemie, but she may not have been quite so early if I had stayed put.

I've found that docs and hospitals are totally tuned out when it comes to mental health issues. They discharged me 48 hours after my daughter was born. (My daughter stayed for another 34 days.) I later found out that that is the WORST time for a post-partum mother, when hormone levels are at their highest. No wonder I couldn't stop crying!

I'm very resentful of the experiences I had, and I think the medical establishment should be held responsible for the mental and emotional damage they inflict in the course of treatment, and especially when they're so focused on avoiding a lawsuit that they recommend a measure that is clearly not in the best interest of the patient.

Candace - posted on 11/13/2010

OMG!!! That was awful!! Fortunately I have no complaints about mine. My son was delivered by emergency c-section at 33wks due to me having Eclampsia. I was so out of it so I remember nothing from the first three days of my six day stay in the hospital. From the time that I can remember the nurses and doctors were wonderful!! They always asked if I was in any pain and made sure to give me medicine if I was. When I started to feel better they asked if I wanted to go see my baby( he was three days old by this time) called for a wheelchair for me and was even waiting in my room for me when I came back. The neonatologist that was assigned to my baby would call my room every morning to tell me how my baby was doing. The clinical social worker even called and just explained to me that baby would have to remain in the NICU until he was 4lbs, could maintain his body temp and take all feedings from his bottle. Under the circumstances the hospital stay from what I could remember was great!!