73 People Who Work At Maternity Wards Share The Weirdest Things A Father Has Said Or Done

Last month, a dad asked one of our OBs for an “extra stitch” during his wife’s repair after delivery. Her immediate response was, “exactly how small do you need it to be, sir?”

Legend on our unit now.

A story from internship. Checked a woman who was not progressing in labour and thought “that’s not a head”. Sure enough, the baby was breech. She was a very tiny woman and this was a large baby, so it was pretty clear that she would need a c-section.

She was a recent immigrant from a small third world country, didn’t have a partner with her, and spoke absolutely no English. Unfortunately nobody on the unit spoke her language. I tried my best to mime and explain what was happening and what we were recommending. She nodded yes, but I had a strong sense she didn’t understand the explanation. We sent somebody down to housekeeping and the cafeteria hoping we could find any hospital staff who could translate.

Fortunately we eventually found someone who was able to translate. It turns out that she understood that the baby was breech, but that she thought we would have to literally cut her open and end her in order to save her baby! Her relief and joy when she finally understood what the plan was, was something I won’t forget. The staff member from housekeeping was wonderful and stayed to support her until she went into the OR.

I'm not an OB/GYN. However, I am a flight medic who has delivered three babies. I'll never forget any of them. The second baby I delivered was about 5 weeks early, roadside, in East Jesus nowhere.

The family had gone camping in the desert and mom went into labor. By the time we arrived, there was no turning back and baby's head was visible. Mom was sort of squatting with her forearms on the middle row of seats in a van and her booty was aimed out the door (she was clothed in a loose dress). Just as she was pushing the head out, dad said, "Wait wait wait...we might get blood on the floor!" Mom rounded on him with the biggest glare and said, "F your mom's van!!!"

That became a unit motto.

My ex boyfriend is an OB/GYN. He got annoyed with me when I was having cramps and said because he was an obgyn he knew exactly what that pain felt like and told me to get over it.

Shoulda seen that as the first of many red flags.

My mom was a general practitioner. She once had a 15 year old girl come in who had a pregnancy test show positive but was adamant she couldn't be pregnant. My mom confirmed the pregnancy but the girl still refused to believe it was true. She went on to explain to my mom it was impossible for her to get pregnant because her boyfriend had told her that if she laid completely still during intercourse then she wasn't "active" and couldn't get pregnant.

Not an OBGYN here, My ex boyfriend was adamantly against me using tampons/cups/discs or anything that had to be inserted. He told me it would change the shape of my privates. He believed that after a certain amount of time together, my area would change to his shape so we would be a "perfect fit".

That and me using supers or ultra tampons would mean I would need a girthy-er man...because, you know, a wad of cotton would stretch me out like CRAZY.

so my question is...does that "perfect fit" scenario also apply to the 11 other women he was boning on the side? no? just me? aw, i must be special.

Seeing mom back in the office for her 2 week follow up after delivery to remove stitches (she had a tear that needed repair) only to find out the stitches were gone.

Turns out hubby took them out because they were bothering him during intercourse.

Back in my OB rotation in med school, we had a pregnant woman who was supermorbidly obese with a BMI in the 70s. During her first prenatal visit, the resident was asking about her pregnancy history, past difficulty with fertility and conception, problems with the pregnancy so far, etc. Pretty standard stuff as far as I understood at the time.

Husband then chimed in about the conception. Turns out they had no trouble conceiving.... He then went into detail about how the conception went and blew my little inexperienced mind. Basically, the wife’s mother and sister had to help with conception by holding the wife’s thighs out of the way enough that he could get in to do the job. I still don’t have words.

ER nurse here - had a 19 year old woman come in for abdominal pain. She had two kids and was pregnant again.

She said she was not happy to be pregnant again but she didn’t want to break up with her boyfriend. I thought the BF may have been hurting her or not letting her use birth control or something so I closed the door and asked her some questions. Turned out she didn’t know intercourse caused babies. Her education consisted of “get boyfriend/married and the babies arrive” with no other details, so she thought once you had a boyfriend, babies were automatic and intercourse was just a fun thing to do. We had a long talk...

Not a mind blowing thing that was said, but still kinda funny. When I was in medical school, I did my OB rotation on the High Risk area (medical students were generally scared of this area, so I was the only student with an awesome attending and got to do a lot). We called the attending on this service a random thought generator....if he thought of something, he would say or act on it.

We had one patient that showed up on our service in active labor. She had a very uneventful pregnancy and we couldn't figure out hy she was on our service, but, hey, we'll take a normal patient. She arrived with perfect makeup, perfect hair, and she had the perfect epidural and was in no pain or distress. The attending looked at me and said that I'd be doing this delivery. Okay, I thought. No problem. Then he looked at the father and said, "No. You'll deliver this one."

The father got wide eyed and the mother started laughing. "He's an air traffic controller. I've never seen him panic before!"

The nurse took him to the sink, gave him a scrub brush and had him start washing his hands. We turned back to the mom ("OK, push 1, 2, 3.....10. Relax.") We looked at the dad and he's still washing that same finger he started with. OK, that's good enough (a delivery is by no means sterile), put this, this and this on. Our attending didn't put women in stirups, but would instead deliver straight onto the bed. He sat the dad on the bed with him on n one side and me on the other side and the dad delivered his own healthy child.

Definitely gave a story to the nurse who was taking care of my wife and I after our second. Having been going through labour all day, only being on liquids and not giving birth till almost 9 at night. We were relaxing (relative term) with the nurse while holding the baby when I turn to ask the nurse a question. She pauses... turns away... turns back to me and responds back with. "Not anytime soon".

Disappointed I try to push for more specifics. Because I had casually asked "When can my wife have snacks" and that was a pretty non-descript answer for somebody who hadn't eaten in 12 hours!

Turns out, she though I was asking when can my wife have intercourse... after a good laugh the correct answer was a couple of hours. I can't imagine what was going through her head before the clarification!

Not quite what you are asking for but when my wife was pregnant she fell down the stairs because our other child decided she wanted to jump out of Mom's arms. Cue all the bruising and preterm labor.

After that, appointments got really awkward. Nurses were short with me. I finally told my wife that I had a feeling the staff didn't like me and I figured I'd sit the next appointment out unless she really wanted me there.

My wife said she noticed all of this and decided to ask a nurse what the deal was. Turns out the whole office just assumed I'm the one who pushed her down the stairs. I wasn't even home when it happened. That's when I found out that I apparently look like the type of guy who would push a pregnant woman down the stairs.

My second delivery, I had the most amazing nurse. My first was kind of a circus, but my second I had an epidural, so it was very chill while we were prepping to push. She turned to my husband and informed him "Whatever you do, don't talk about how tired you are for a few weeks. You have no idea how many times I've heard a husband talk about how tired he is after a woman just went through labor, and everyone in the room wants to smack him.".

Obligatory not an OB/GYN, but a operating room nurse.

One gynecologist told us once about their gynecologist in training. We all knew him. He was a young, friendly and good guy to work with. He was already married, father of 2 kids at the age of 25. This guy had only one negative aspect. And it was affecting his work dearly. He was extremely religious. This doesn’t have to be negative. But his decision making was based on his religion, and he often refused to offer contraceptives to his female patients and he was reserved talking and explaining contraception methodes with couples. It was against his religion. Eventually word got around with his superiors, and they had to sit him down. Explaining him it’s against the law to withhold any form of help and information.

Had to have an emergency c-section, and my husband was in there, watching the whole thing over the sheet. After the baby was born, the doctor removed the placeta, and my husband asks, “What is THAT?” Without missing a beat, doc turns to the second doctor assisting, holds it up and says, “I don’t know, what IS this?” All I could see at this point was my husband’s face, and it was sooooo worth it.

Not an OB but I work in an ER and we had a 22-year-old woman come in a while back. I asked her what she was here for and she said "I found a hole."

"Like an abscess?"

"I found a HOLE."

"Okay. Is it a wound? Does it hurt?"

"No, it's just a HOLE. It's a black hole."

I 100% didn't understand what she was talking about and knew that I wouldn't get any more info from her at the check-in desk, so I gave her the bracelet and sent her to the triage nurse, who had the same conversation with her. She couldn't specify anything beyond "Look, it's just a HOLE!"

It was her private area.

Not an OB but apparently my dad asked my mom’s doctor when she was in labor how long it would take me to open my eyes (like puppies/kittens).

Work in IM but a patient's partner not wanting us to reveal an HIV diagnosis to a patient was definitely a low point for me, though where I work it's probably a stretch to even call that "surprising."

Back in my ER days, a young teenage patient came in with pregnancy type symptoms, of course pregnancy test was positive, and appeared utterly shocked she was pregnant. I asked her if she was active? Yes. Do you use condoms? No. BC? No. Still she seemed surprised this had happened.

I was a receptionist and this woman came in crying. Her husband was behind her and she said, "help im bleeding." Long story short, we found out she was actively miscarrying in the lobby. She went to a back room for emergent care while a surgical room was prepped and she was, of course, crying and moaning and she seemed to be in immense pain.

The husband was stoic the whole time. Nonplussed. Not bothered in the least. He frowned at her moaning and said, "will you knock it off? You're embarrassing me."

He even had the nerve to ask us to watch his daughter in our breakroom while he went for a smoke.

Mom is an obgyn. She called a patient over to tell her she was hiv positive. The patient said "I knew it", to which my mom asked how and why. Turns out the husband had been hiv positive for years and they had decided never to speak about it and have unprotected intercourse for five years.

This is what it costs to shirk responsibility and look the other way. In other words, idiot tax.