30 Maternity Ward Workers Share The Worst Cases Of “You Shouldn’t Be A Parent” They’ve Ever Seen

Not a medical professional, but my folks own a group home that specializes in caring for medically complex young children who require 24hr nurse care. Most of their kids have been wards of the state. Aside from the terribly sad d**g situations others have posted about (they commonly get kids who have issues due to d***s during pregnancy), one case that stands out to me is a woman who apparently drank bleach regularly throughout her pregnancy hoping her kid would turn out blonde. Ruined the baby’s brain and caused a lot of other serious medical issues.

I was on a L&D unit as a student nurse. We had a young mother in who had just given birth to her second child. The mother refused to stop smoking Mari***na for her whole pregnancy as she didn't feel that there was enough evidence to say that it was harmful to the baby (her child was born early, underweight and with other illnesses that will follow them through life). She couldn't go more than 2 hours without going outside to smoke a joint, even if that meant leaving the baby alone in the room (refused to tell nursing staff when she was stepping out), or with her young cousin who did not know how to hold a baby, and almost let the baby aspirate on its own vomit. We had to increase her room checks to every 20 minutes out of fear for the infants safety. The cherry on top is that while all this was going on, her first child was down the hall on the peds unit for juvenile diabetes management. She had already chosen to let her first kid stay full time with his father as she didn't feel like she could care for him until she 'got her s**t together'. She didn't visit her son, not even once even though he was maybe 30 feet away.

There are far, far worse cases out there to be sure. I just can't help but wonder how both of those kids are now.

I was a (male) registered nurse for 21 years, specializing in adolescent and children's psychiatric care. When I was in nursing school I was *very* fortunate to have gotten to observe and/or participate in six births. (My preceptor, a female L&D RN, was determined that male nursing students should get the same OB/GYN nursing rotation experience as the female students.)

One birth I attended was a 16-year-old mother who was infected with genital condyloma accuminata warts and herpes in the vagina and birth canal. The MD had decided to do a cesarian section because of the danger to the baby. The father was an 18-year-old member of the Bloods gang, who showed up in full gang regalia, all red, hat turned sideways, tons of gold jewelry, etc. My job was to get the father ready to go into the operating room to accompany the mother during the C-section. It was a struggle convincing him to disrobe out of all that gang stuff and put on scrubs. (It didn't help that the scrubs were blue, the color of his gang rivals, the Crips.) Eventually we got him there, and to his credit he didn't pass out and he held her hand and talked to her during the procedure. (She was awake, but sedated. The MD used a caudal block--spinal anesthesia.) The best moment for me was when the neo-natal nurse handed the gangbanger his son after the APGAR scores and all that. I thought to myself, "This guy's gangbangin' days are *over.* He's a Daddy now. He's got more important s**t to do."

I really, really hope the two of them got their s**t together, for the baby's sake.

I don't work in L & D, but both my living kids spent some time in NICU. The saddest thing to me was how few visitors there were in the NICU each time we went. It's a 50-bed NICU and often we were the only ones there.

The first time I visited my youngest baby, when I was still inpatient, I didn't talk to anyone in the unit about it. I tried to walk out to the elevator in my hospital gown. I knew where the NICU was already. The lady at the desk yelled at me to come back and made me put my name down. I said "I'm just going to see my baby" and she said they had to keep track of moms coming and going bc they had had moms just leave and never come back, abandoning their babies. 😭.

I once had an 10th grade student who was pregnant with her third child. It was horrible. I felt so bad for her. All three babies were with the worst guy ever. He was so mean. (I had him in class, too.).

I worked in an abortion clinic in the 90's and I remember a young woman who couldn't stay sober long enough to have the abortion she wanted. Fetal alcohol syndrome is more serious than people know. Sad.

When I was a student I overheard some midwives talking about some new parents. They fed the baby at 3pm and then said “we don’t need to feed it again until tomorrow, right?” The midwives were shocked and were like “oh my sweet summer child… you’re in for a shock, aren’t you?”.

Not the worst of the worst, but I was caring for a new mom who was planning to breastfeed. I offered to help her get the baby (only an hour or 2 old at this point) latched to try to feed. Mom said, “no thanks I think I’ll start tomorrow so I can rest today.” I asked her if she wanted a bottle to feed to baby for now and she declined, saying she only wanted her baby to be breastfed by her. I had to explain to her that the baby couldn’t wait until tomorrow to be fed and she seemed genuinely surprised, like she could not wrap her head around the fact that the baby needed to be fed earlier than when she decides she’s ready? Again, not the worst by any means but left me a little nervous for the baby.

Another time, I had a couple come in to have their first baby together. They each had kids from previous relationships but did not have custody of any of them, something they made sure we all knew. They kept saying that they were “gonna do it right this time!” Dad was excited to have 2 days of paternity leave from his job at Arby’s and mom was unemployed. They reeked of cigarettes and mom had tested positive for d***s and baby went straight to NICU for detox, so social services was already involved before they even left the hospital. I genuinely worried for that baby.

Had a mom with several kids come in to deliver another one. She had a CPS case open but had been evading the courts. We had a case worker waiting on the unit for her on the day of her induction to take her current kids away and eventually take her newborn after delivery.

I volunteer in a NICU. Recently a "dad" who refused to be on the birth certificate started arguing and being a d**k. The baby was sleeping and he woke it up. The nurse said he handled baby roughly. They ended up having to ban him from the NICU. Cps was involved already and hopefully they continue to be.

I have had two different patients this year who showed while still in the hospital that they shouldn't have had their babies. Both of them threw fits that they were too tired to feed/take care of their babies and the nurses should. One asked what the nurses were there for if not to take care of the baby, because she didn't want to. The other one said she was too tired and didn't want to feed the baby. That one came to the ER at least once in the months after the baby arrived to say she was too tired to take care of the baby and they should watch him like they're a daycare center (and also recently needed a pregnancy test because she thought she might be pregnant again).