It was 4am...

It was 4am, 14^th Oct 2009. I was still awake. It was not because I had insomnia; not because I just finished played games; not also because I just played facebook; or not even because I just finished study. I suddenly had the urge to write this post because I just conducted a delivery after waiting for 5 hours.

My patient is a 19 years old Iban girl (similar to my sister’s age), currently in the 38^th week of her 1^st pregnancy. Antenatally uncomplicated and estimated fetal weight is about 3kg (not so big). When I 1^st saw her, I was very happy because her Os is 4cm already, which means I was able to deliver the baby soon. However, the patient kept complaining of lower abdominal and back pain. I was pity her so I asked the doctor whether can give her analgesia. The doctor agreed to give her NO₂ + O₂. But she became restless and tried to twist her body on the bed to relieve the pain and refused to take the analgesia. And because of that, the fetal heart tracing was very poor. So we were not sure the baby is ok or not. She even cried and hit the pillow (fortunately didn’t hit me la..:P) and refuse me to count the contractions.

Initially I thought she needed to be sent for Cesarean section and started to lose interest in waiting her. But fortunately she delivered the baby safely and I was able to fill my log book.

The story ended here but my points of view are:

1. The patient is young. She is only 19 years old. She can’t even tolerate the pain of labour. She kept asking me why is it so painful and why it takes so long time to deliver a baby. I can’t understand that if you are not well prepared to become a mother, then please don’t become. Every lady should know that labour is really really a very painful event. Therefore you should tolerate it but not throwing the tantrum. I am not saying that you can’t have sex before marriage or you can’t marriage if you are scared of pain. You can have sex but please use contraception if you are not well prepared for the most painful event. If you really wish to have a child, then I believe that the urge to have a child can cover your pain.

2. Deliver a baby is a very hard job for a doctor or nurses or a medical students. From the beginning until you clean the patient, equipment and bed, it really needs a lot of time and energy. I can frankly shout out that the most number of deliveries you can do in one day is 2-3. It is very tiring and I can ensure you that you can’t finished 5-6 deliveries in one day unless you use short cut.