May 25th 2019 - I was a week and a half past my due date with no real health concerns when a Foley catheter was used for induction. It opened my cervix to the size of the balloon but didn’t induce labour. My waters were then manually broken. Didn’t induce labour. I was put on pitocin. While I was having an epidural I told the anesthesiologist that it was painful. I was told that I was experiencing pressure not pain. An insanely dismissive and inaccurate comment. The pitocin was not causing my cervix to dilate after 12 hours.
The third doctor in charge while I was there suggested that we could try going off the pitocin for a couple hours and starting with a fresh bag. Apparently that sometimes works. I asked if it was possible to schedule a c-section instead. My gut was that if it wasn’t working after 12 hours a fresh bag would not change that. She wholeheartedly agreed to the c-section and told me they would schedule it for early afternoon. Four hours later the new doctor on shift told me she strongly advises against a c-section and that I’m more dilated (untrue according to later checks) I felt bullied into agreeing to try it against my better judgement. This doctor was walking with a cane and I wondered later if she simply didn’t want to do the c-section because of her injury. The second 8 hour long pitocin induction did not work. New doctor on shift now suggests emergency c-section after 31 hours of unsuccessful in-hospital induction plus at-home Foley catheter induction. Both my husband and I have slept terribly for two nights now. One in hospital.
During the c-section the anesthesiologist accidentally administered pitocin into my arm rather than my uterus and my throat started to close up. I had violent shaking which I was told is normal during c-section and I could hardly breathe. Once in the hospital afterward my baby’s head looked like a three tiered cake from the failed inductions and he would not latch and would not stop crying. I think he may have been coming down after so much fentanyl. My baby would hardly sleep and would not stop crying. He was hungry. The nurses kept showing me how to breastfeed but the baby wouldn’t latch. They told me to keep trying. I was exhausted from major surgery and a long unsuccessful induction and could not sleep because baby was crying and all these people kept barging into the room for one thing or another. Waking the baby when he finally would sleep. It was absolutely awful. There was absolutely no special treatment for this difficult birthing experience. They treated us as though everything that was happening was completely normal. They allowed my baby to lose over 10% of his body weight before finally offering formula. The baby was very difficult to get to latch to the bottle. We had a lot of trouble getting the baby fed and he would scream day and night. I couldn’t rock my baby because of my surgery. They insisted we stay a fourth night at the hospital and that we meet with their lactation consultants. They could get the baby to latch briefly only and they set me up with a complicated apparatus with a tube taped to my nipple and the other end in a cup of formula. It took four hands to set it up. I was supposed to do this around the clock every two to three hours after four almost sleepless nights and major abdominal surgery. Ridiculous! When we were finally allowed to leave the hospital it felt like we had been through a war. Both myself and my husband wept from the pain, exhaustion and anguish. We needed more help, rest and protection. The staff treated us coldly and poorly. As though we were doing something wrong and didn’t provide us with the help we needed. They put way too much pressure on breastfeeding. Not taking into account our mental and emotional state. They should have provided formula earlier, provided a proper sleeping space for my husband - not an uncomfortable recliner and they should have ensured that our room was entered quietly at all times to allow rest. They also completely failed to show compassion and understanding. Overall this was an extremely degrading and traumatizing experience. If I didn’t have a young baby to care for, I would look into suing them for the trauma they caused me and my baby.
When I think about this experience I am furious and appalled that this well regarded hospital provided such awful “care”. The trauma of this experience has made me decide not to have another baby. I will avoid Mt Sinai hospital and any other teaching hospital as much as I can for the rest of my life. Apathy is a major problem in the childbirth centre at this hospital.
I would like to file a formal complaint but haven’t had the time to figure out how to do this as I’m caring for a young baby. I hope it is not too late to do so once I have time and figure out how.
I recommend to anyone pregnant who is not high risk to go with a midwife so you have someone to advocate for you through your birthing experience. When you are exhausted and healing it is very hard to do this for yourself and unfortunately at Mt Sinai, you cannot count on the staff to treat you well.
Submitted by VB
