Pregnancy is weird, no matter how you look at it, and women who are expecting have a ton of questions…and some of them get downright weird…
This means OBs and GYNs field some pretty amazing questions on a regular basis.
And, thanks to Reddit, now you get to hear them, too.
Let’s check them out!
15. Someone didn’t read the fine print. Or any print, for that matter.
I used to work at a family planning clinic. Had a 19 year old come in and she was pregnant. She was shocked because she had the Nexplanon (implant in your arm to prevent pregnancy) Doctor didn’t feel the Nexplanon in her arm. Patient says “Oh I got it removed last year.”
… then you aren’t protected from pregnancy. Just a total lack of understanding about how it worked.
14. Abdominal pain, yes, that could be…
Not a midwife but do medical triage over the phone.
Had a 19yo ring because of abdominal pain, asked further into the assessment is she was pregnant, she is! Call changes tone, how far along? 37 weeks! Could you be in labour, she doesn’t think so. “I just need to put the phone on my bed while I get changed” why are you getting changed “but embarrassing I think I wet myself” do you think that could be your waters.
She sounds skeptical but grudgingly agrees it could be, I ask if she can get to the hospital, no everyone in the house is drunk, I ask if I can send an ambulance, she doesn’t want me to as she has “a house full of people watching the match”( this is during the football World Cup) she eventually agrees as though she’s doing me a favour…
13. I assure you, you very much can.
It goes like this:
Me: Your pregnancy test came back positive.
PT: Oh, I couldn’t be!
Me: Are you sexually active?
PT: Yes
Me: Are you using any birth control?
Pt: No
Me: Then why don’t you think you could be pregnant?
Pt: Because I couldn’t be!
Me: …
Repeat scene many times over past 20 years. Denial is not a river in Egypt.
Edit: Thank you for the silver! I will pay it forward. I’m very new to Reddit and just figuring it out.
12. I wouldn’t even know what to say to that.
I once talked to a pregnant woman who had come to an appt for her mother, who I was seeing.
The woman was largely pregnant with twins and chomping on ice chips. I asked her why because sometimes that can be a sign of anemia and I would have told her to make sure to bring it up with her Ob/GYN. She told me she always ate ice chips…because she was allergic to water. Her mother agreed.
Edit: for those mentioning aquagenic urticaria, I know that’s a real condition (and what a cruel joke of one!). She didn’t have it.
11. Tried to explain…
I work on a busy labor ward.
Took a call from a woman who wanted to ask me about a pregnancy test result. I tried to explain that we are for the other end of the pregnancy but she wasn’t really getting it so for an easy life I just thought f*ck it and told her to go ahead.
Her – I had a baby 12 weeks ago and I’ve just done a pregnancy test and it was positive. What does it mean? Me – can I ask you a few more questions? Her – sure Me – Thankyou. Firstly, had you stopped bleeding after having your baby? Her – yes Me – have you had unprotected sex? Her – yes Me – have you had any early pregnancy symptoms? Her – well I’ve been feeling sick in the morning. That’s why I did the test. Me – I see. Well from the information you’ve given me then the test may indeed be right and you may indeed be pregnant. Her – but I can’t be. I’m breastfeeding. I haven’t had a period yet after having the baby. Me – (taking deep breath) didn’t your midwife tell you about contraception before you left the hospital? Her – yes Me – did you get any? Her – no….. Her – oh…. sh^t.
I get so many women who think they can’t get pregnant if they are breastfeeding. It’s bollocks. If you’re reading this, breastfeeding, not using contraception and not wanting to have a baby in about 9 months time, then stay away from all p*nises until you’ve got yourself sorted. Don’t wait for your first period. You’re fertile before it even happens.
10. Stop. Okay that is ridiculous.
I had a girl call the office because she swallowed a cherry seed and was worried that the baby was going to choke on it.
Seriously… what the f*ck is wrong with you?!?
9. This is a trio of madness, right here.
I’m a midwife.
I was booking a woman at the beginning of her pregnancy and she wasn’t exactly pleased about being pregnant. I asked her if she was sure she wanted to continue the pregnancy (there’s no point me booking her if she wants a termination). She starts ranting about how it was the soft drinks industry’s fault and how she’s going to sue them. I was pretty confused at this point and asked her what she meant. She informed me that she had been washing her vagina out with cola following s^x and that she must have bought a bad batch as she was now pregnant.
I went to see a woman who had delivered her first baby a few days previously. I knew she had had stitches but she seemed to be in a lot of pain. I asked her if she wanted me to check them and she consented, and when I did, I got a strong whiff of chemicals. I asked her what she was using to clean her vaginal area with (we advise women to just use water for the first few days). She told me she was using Dettol (a household disinfectant here in the UK) as she always used it in her kitchen and she’d never got ill from her food, so it must work in preventing infections. A few words with me and when I saw her the next time she was moving around freely like she was in a tampax commercial.
This one isn’t really to do with sexual education but was really a WTF moment. We have bags that are given away to new parents and they have free samples in – baby wash, fabric conditioner, nappy cream etc. I examined a baby who was 10 days old and her skin was almost red raw in places. I thought it was the worst case of eczema that I had ever seen and that she should get the baby checked out at the hospital. While I was trying to get through to them I asked her if she had been bathing the baby in anything (again we advise using water only for the first couple of weeks). English wasn’t her first language but her husband came home at that point and translated for me. They had received a free sample of fabric conditioner in the pack. This had a picture of a smiling baby in the front. They assumed this was baby soap, had bought a massive bottle of it, and had then bathed the baby in it. Neat. Luckily the baby had no lasting effects.
8. I’ve never wanted to be that close to be granny.
We had a woman come to triage one day, in no visible distress, but certain that she was in labor. She denied feeling any loss of fluid, contractions, or pain. When questioned further, she explained that she was already “dilated 4”. She was accompanied by her granny, who explained that SHE had checked her granddaughter at home and she was able to fit four fingers inside the vagina, so she knew it was time. Not in the cervix, in the vagina. ?
7. That’s going to quickly turn into a savings loss plan.
I had a cousin that had a friend that told her a way to save money was to stop taking her birth control for 6 months. Friend told her that birth control pills were still effective for 6 months after taking them. As you can guess, she ended up pregnant, it was the only reason we found out about her genius money saving plan.
6. This is just sad.
Dad was a high risk OB/GYN. Once had to argue with a woman that her daughter emphatically did not get pregnant from swallowing. Despite her protests that her daughter was a virgin, to which my dad replied he was only aware of one previous virgin birth in history.
5. OMG someone was getting into trouble that night.
I’ve told this story before, but it bears repeating…
I worked as a telephone triage nurse and received a call from a very concerned young lady. She said that she was pregnant and had gone to an appointment with her OB-GYN that day and had some questions. This was relatively common; patients can sometimes feel rushed in the doctor’s office or forget the questions they were going to ask, so they call and ask us later.
Me: Ok, no problem! How can I help?
Pregnant lady: Well, the doctor told me I can’t have any more s^x until after the baby is born!
Me: (Looking at her record in the computer) Ok. I see you’re pretty far along and were having some pre-term contractions, which can be caused by sex. So the doctor recommends no s^x so that the baby doesn’t come too early.
Pregnant lady: BUT HOW WILL I FEED THE BABY?!?
Me: Ummmm….what?
Turns out, her male partner convinced her that babies needed to eat semen to develop, and this could only be done with PIV sex. I told her this was totally wrong and gave her a quick lesson about the umbilical cord. She was skeptical until I pointed out that single women and lesbians have perfectly healthy babies without constant sex. “Oh, ok! That makes sense!” she said. Then she thanked me and started to hang up the phone- I could hear her calling her partner’s name as she hung up. Would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation!
4. There are so many things wrong with this story.
I work in Public Health and Family Practice. We get our own special ones. Most recently the lady with chlamydia that stated she did not use birth control because “you cannot get pregnant if you have an STD”. Right. Yes she knew she had the STD and yes she was sexually active.
3. That’s not how any of this works.
Obligatory not a doctor or midwife but my friend with multiple kids had a yet ANOTHER pregnancy scare months ago. She said she thought she’d be protected since she had taken the morning after pill a MONTH before. She also told me some time ago that she wouldn’t bother with the pill anymore because aside from side effects (which I understand. They can be awful) it didn’t work and she still got pregnant on it. I asked her if she took it every day and she said “Well I’d miss a few days here and there but it still should have worked”. Oh geesh. No girl… no.
2. How did like, a mass of people even come to believe this?
Not a MW or gyno but a story from a doctor in a town where I used to live:
A man and wife had a daughter. Then he somehow (farming accident?) lost a testicle. Then the couple had a son a year later so all his parts work, right? Then a few years later they have another daughter. All hell breaks loose in the maternity waiting room between the two families. His family is insisting that the mother was fooling around because “he lost his girl testicle in the accident.” The doc had to separate them, then had to give a lesson about reproduction right there to explain that men’s testicles aren’t made to be one to make boys and the other to make girls. Members of both families were apparently confused about it, he said.
1. My heart honestly breaks for the lot of them.
Very young girl (barely 13) came in for symptoms of a UTI. Pregnancy test came back positive. Her and her mother claimed that could not be possible because “you can’t get pregnant until you’re 18”. When asked why they thought that mom said “Well, if that wasn’t the case why would they put warnings for pregnant people on cigarette packs”. And the daughter genuinely thought that “only grown ups can have babies.”
I. Am. Dying. I’m not sure whether to feel worse for the doctors or the patients!
What’s the weirdest worry you had while pregnant? Where did you find the answer?
Please tell us!