by A. Kyles

Created on: July 31, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

There is something to be said about the statement "Doctors should listen to mothers". I don't believe this just apply to after the baby is born but to before as well. I have had experiences with both and from what I've seen, I have no doubt that I could do a better job!

When our oldest daughter was only three, she began complaining about her throat. She was not eating that well and just laying around - something she doesn't do. She was running a low grade fever and that's what really caught my attention. She has allergies so I wrote the sore throat off to congestion. I called the doctor's office and they wanted me to wait until the following day - over 24 hours and I pushed until they finally made us an appointment.

By the time we arrived at the doctor's office about three to four hours later, her temperature was even higher and she was crying that it hurt to swallow. I was positive she had strep throat even though she'd never had it before. The doctor walked in the room took one look at her and stated "it probably isn't strep, just a virus but I'll do a culture to make you happy". That really boosted my confidence! The culture came back positive and she was forced to say she was wrong. After two days, our daughter was good as new. Had I not insisted on the culture, without letting the doctor make the decision to not do one, than she could have had other problems from not having her strep throat treated.

Another example and probably the best is when I was pregnant with our now nine month old daughter. At 33 1/2 weeks, I started bleeding bad and my Braxton-Hicks were getting worse. I went to the doctor, he performed a non-stress fetal stress test and it came back "inconclusive" in his office so he sent us to the hospital to have an ultrasound a longer non-stress stress test completed. While waiting for all these tests to be finished, they did a FFN test (this test to see if you will be go into labor within two weeks). We had to wait until the next day to get the results.

The next day, we proceeded to the doctor's office. He told us that the FFN test showed we weren't at risk for going into labor within two weeks. I told him something was going on and I figured that we didn't have too much longer. The problem was, we were only 34 weeks pregnant. He scheduled another non-stress test and an ultrasound for the following week not heeding my warning that we wouldn't be needing it - she was coming soon.

To make me right, she came on that Sunday/Monday morning at 12:58am. I had been in the hospital for 12 hours the night before - we had just gotten home at 12 noon on Sun. from the hospital. The doctor tired Tribetulnie to stop the contractions but never gave me steroids to be sure of her lungs were fully developed.

Today, she is still at tiny baby but she is crawling, and feeding herself snacks. Don't let doctors do what they want, they don't always know the best. Had the doctor listened to me they may have been able to keep my baby "cooking" longer.

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