whitewriter | The women of Western Sydney (Reply)

A woman comes in today because her "Water broke". They were in a mad mad rush. This was the third time she'd call for contracting over the past two days.

The mad rush was for the water (not an emergency).

However there ended up being a code critical heart beat so it ended in an emergency c-section.

Does the woman tell us she had a ECV (External cephalic version- they use ultrasound, a uterine relaxant medication and by hand, externally push the baby into the cephalic or head down position) That she was breech until 36 weeks and that she underwent a potentially life threatening procedure to have a baby that was cephalic for a normal vaginal birth?

No she does not.

I went through the phone call log from this woman.

At 13 weeks, she phoned to say that she went on a bush walk and now she was worried about the baby.
Advice: stay at home
At 15 weeks, she had gas bubbles in her abdomen, and she wanted to know if that was what baby's movements felt like?
Advice: stay at home
At 18 weeks, she had back pain from housework and she phoned us to ask about that.
Advice: stay at home

My favourite was:
At 23 weeks, she phoned to say that she went to the cinema and the sound was really loud, and now she was worried that the baby's hearing was effected.

I talked to the midwife who answered the call. Her response back to the woman: did you leave the cinema once you became concerned for the baby's hearing? Answer: apparently not.
Advice: stay at home. My thoughts on reading this - there's nothing we can do for stupid....

At 30 weeks, she phoned to say the baby moves and that made her pee more frequently.
Advice: stay at home.
At 36 weeks she had the ECV and had abdominal pain and was invited in for an assessment because ECV risks placental bleeding - that was legit - she had an assessment - all was well and went home.
Then she had some contraction pain, and twice, over the phone, the midwife talked her into staying home and convinced her it was still early.

However on the 3rd phone call (for the same issue) it's a rule that we have to invite them in regardless of what we think (which I think is a decent rule).

Assessing a woman on the phone can be really difficult, especially if they don't tell us everything or embellish, or don't call us. Or just call us too often with really interesting questions.

Same day - we had another lady who said a liquid that was yellow and foul smelling came out of her vagina - so we told her to wear a pad and come in.

The pad had the tiniest smear of what looked like maybe discharge...

Dr's r/v and a spec later and she was sent home.

When I left there was a woman in there who came in for assessment because she was dizzy. We tried to send her to ED or the GP for other reasons for dizziness however she said the baby wasn't moving well so she had to come in for an assessment. The midwives thought she was trying to rig the system (get seen faster by saying there's a problem with the baby).

We are such a judgemental group. It's our job to take care of these women,
no matter how dumb they sound at times.