Natural Birth
Declining Internals
My OB has known from day one that I want a natural birth and has been really supportive of it. Part of the reason I choose him is that he's an outspoken advocate for vaginal birth (his c-section rate is below 10 percent). However, he is pretty insistent about doing an internal on Monday. He says he needs to do one to make sure the baby is head down. Does that seem like logical reasoning?
FWIW, we compromised on him doing it that one time, but not telling me about any "progress" b/c I don't want to get caught up in numbers - I believe LO will come when he comes.
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Re: Declining Internals
Thank you - I thought it seemed weird! On one hand, he said he was "sure" the baby was head down, but then when I said no to the internal, that's what he came up with.
On one hand, I really don't want to argue with him this close to the end, but on the other, I think if I can't be firm on this now, I won't have much luck later if he wants to do an intervention I'm not comfortable with.
Ditto the PP's - they can figure out the position based on external palpation of your belly.
Or, if your OB has the capability in-house, they could do a very quick (external) ultrasound to confirm the position.
You always have the right to accept or refuse any internal examination. To put it bluntly, it is sexual assault if someone does it without your consent. However, if you refuse they can certainly act like a jerk about it though...
Rated "L" For Life Blog
DS2 - Oct 2010 (my VBAC baby!)
In some cases this is very true.
But even so, I wouldn't get an internal if I didn't want one.
This is exactly the reason my hospital-based midwife (CNM) gave me with DD's pregnancy for insisting on doing at least one internal at 36 or 37 weeks. I consented to that one, but declined the next ones and she didn't give me any grief over declining those.
Talking to homebirth midwives after the fact, they seemed to think she should have been able to confirm that DD was head down by externally palpitating and that an internal should not be necessary. I think it's a matter of the internal being what some more medical-minded care providers are comfortable with or used to. If your OB wants more confirmation on the head down than his own palpating, maybe he could pull in a midwife to do a "second opinion" palpitation?
Thanks for your thoughts. I think it's true it's probably a mindset thing - he's a doctor, he wants to do a medical procedure and check "baby head down - I felt the head" off the list. I don't have a problem with this that raises it to the level of sexual assault - clearly he won't be doing it if I don't consent. I just thought the reasoning seemed weird after some thought and I don't particularly see the point of a procedure that probably won't tell me anything.
I would have a real problem if he insisted on checking me week after week - there is no benefit in that in my eyes. But I'm torn on Monday. Probably I will talk it through again with him first to get a better idea of why he can't just palpate or do an ultrasound.