Down to Birth #137 | When Providers Get It Wrong: Kassidy's Birth Story of Mistreatment and Claiming Her Power
When Kassidy was preconception, she had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and was told she would never conceive. But she did. When she told her providers her conception date, they refused to listen, and determined her due date based on her last menstrual cycle. This insistence on method over mother caused them to overstate the gestational age throughout Kassidy's entire pregnancy, which resulted in perpetual talks about how "small" her baby was, and "if" he makes it to 28 weeks. When she was 35 weeks pregnant (with her providers convincing themselves and Kassidy she was at 38 weeks) they induced her, resulting in a long and difficult induction because her body and baby weren't ready for birth. Once he was born, he was misdiagnosed with Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) based on the faulty due-date, and they were helicoptered to a larger hospital immediately after giving birth. Suffering from unstable blood sugars and thermoregulation, her baby spent six days in the NICU. From beginning to end, Kassidy was provided with misinformation, instilled with fear, and conditioned to believe her baby - both in-utero and postpartum - could die at any moment. Her anxiety through the roof for years, she returned to the same providers in her second pregnancy until the straw broke the camel's back at 34 weeks. Kassidy found a home birth midwife, and on the way to her first appointment, went into labor with her second baby in the car.
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