Recall of labor
Some of the birth stories told on MDC stretch credulity, such as the one currently circulating about the "deliberate" inversion of the mother's uterus to "punish" her for an unsuccessful attempted UC. Such stories bear a striking resemblence to each other. In almost all the stories, the mother is a heroine. Her only "mistake" is to call for medical assistance; the baby is thereafter born apparently without any assistance from medical staff; the medical staff then go on to "cause" complications. This sounds so much better than the real story, which is that the call for medical assistance is made because complications have already developed. The birth occurs safely at the hospital because medical assistance is available. The complications are NOT caused by medical personnel, but rather successfully treated by medical personnel.This reversal of the facts is not necessarily deliberate, although it is rather remarkable how often they follow the same "script". They may simply be the result of poor understanding and poor recall. The paper Do mothers remember key events during labor? by Elkadry et al. in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology addresses this issue. The authors interviewed women in the months following delivery; median interval since delivery was 10 months. According to the authors:
... Sixty percent of mothers have imperfect recall of significant childbirth events. This simple finding may have profound implications for clinicians and researchers. When less than one half of the population under study is able to give a medically accurate recollection, this timesaving technique may be inappropriate. A clear discussion of important obstetric events between physicians and mothers should occur before discharge or at the postpartum visit to help women understand and remember important details from the delivery...It is hardly suprising that women would not accurately recall all aspects of labor and delivery, particularly those that involved complications. Labor is psychologically stressful, pain interferes with recall, and the sense of time is distorted. Couple that with a woman trying to justify her choice to transfer to her peers, and it makes it even less likely that the story circulating on MDC represent an accurate depiction of events.
Our data are consistent with previous studies, which suggest that relying on patient recall of obstetric events is likely to produce high error rates...
This study is unable to distinguish between the reasons for imperfect recall: did a mother "forget," or did she "never know"? It may be that what a clinician considers to be an important event is not perceived to be important by a mother. We also did not have information about communications with the mother regarding the delivery. We have assumed that the information that is contained in the medical chart was made known to the mother, and this assumption may not be correct...
We did not address the effect of method and quality of pain management on maternal recall. Pain in labor may be found to be an important factor in maternal recall. Future work in this area should examine this aspect of maternal recall...
<< Home