Crazy Secrets From The Maternity Ward Real Ob Nurses Spill The Truth

No late night feedings or weeks without a shower for those OB nurses. No sirree. But a few of the folks who hang out with Mom Nirvana just spilled the secrets of the OB ward to The Stir, and I’m rethinking that whole “lucky duck” envy! Turns out the mommy heaven that is the maternity ward is just chock full of some crazy. Check out what some real nurses told us (all information has been generalized by the nurses in order to protect patients and their identity):

One patient was late for her own (scheduled) induction because she said she couldn’t do her hair and makeup and be at the hospital by 5:30 a.m. A patient who had scheduled an induction with her doctor arrived at the hospital and then said she was refusing the IV … it’s kind of hard to induce labor with pitocin if you can’t inject the patient WITH the pitocin! One mom was obsessed (and I can’t stress obsessed enough) with putting lotion on her feet. Constantly! And when she couldn’t reach them anymore, she made her husband do it. She said they were going to get dry! As if the feet were the most important part? At least that woman knew what body part had her down. Another patient told her husband she wanted her feet rubbed during labor. But as soon as he’d touch them, she’d change her mind. She would yell at him, “Rub my feet! No rub my back! I told you to rub my feet! Rub my back!” The poor guy didn’t know what to rub. We got a call from the ambulance that they were bringing in a girl in active labor who was ready to push. I set up a room really quickly, and in comes a lady soaking wet, dressed in a full-length yellow polyester dress. I peeled her like a banana, got the saturated dress off, put a gown on, put a fetal monitor on, and there’s no heartbeat. Now, she’s pushing this whole time, grabbing her belly, while I call in the midwife. We take her down for an ultrasound and find out … she’s not even pregnant. Constipated maybe, but definitely not pregnant! When the midwife broke the news to her, she said, “Oh, Ok, thanks, good bye!” She jumped up, got dressed, and left! I should preface this by saying I’m not lying here. A woman came into the hospital in early labor. She was on a monitor for awhile, but then asked to have it taken off so she could walk around. Next thing I know, she got up, went into the bathroom, got out her hairdryer, and sat on the floor and proceeded to use the blow dryer to blow dry under her gown. She blow dried her crotch/abdomen for hours. It was like 100 degrees in the bathroom, and I asked her what the heck she was doing. She replied that the blow dryer and the warm air were the only things that helped the pain. A mom came into the maternity ward because the baby always moved at the same time each day, and today it wasn’t. The nurse put her on the monitor for a non-stress test, and everything was OK, so the patient was OK’d to go home. She kept wondering about the baby not moving at the usual time. Then she said, “Oh my God, I know! It’s daylight savings today! The baby didn’t know it was daylight savings day, and the baby didn’t know what time it was.” I had a family arguing about what the brand newly born grandbaby was going to call the grandmother present in the room. Now remember, the kid wasn’t even going to talk for months, but there was a heated argument going on about what this kid was going to call the woman!