A Wish For Pregnant Moms

[Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway]

I wish I could click my heels three times and be transported back to a time when healthcare was not a business and patients were more than a commodity. I am NOT a healthcare provider. I’m a physician who was taught to heal.

I wish pregnant moms had time to bond with their babies before being booted out of a hospital. And I didn’t have to threaten billing clerks for not admitting my patients for emergency tests because they didn’t have the “right” insurance.

I wish the ob hospitalists hadn’t sent a patient home inappropriately with low fluid and no further follow-up. The patient thought everything was “okay”, traveled to another state on vacation and had to be tracked down. She was advised to go the nearest hospital where she had an emergency c/section that saved her baby’s life.

I wish I could have avoided the hassle with a local hospital when I attempted to send a patient for a diagnostic test and they said they were “too full and too busy.” I ultimately sent the patient to a specialty hospital that was further away where she immediately had a cesarean section because the baby had stopped growing at 33-weeks. Both mom and baby are fine.

I wish the triage department at a local hospital had performed an ultrasound on a patient who complained of bleeding at 27-weeks. They listened to the baby’s heartbeat, said everything was fine and sent her home. When I sent her for an ultrasound, the radiologist contacted me emergently. The patient’s placenta completely covered the opening to her womb and there was a cord wrapped around the baby’s neck three times. I referred the patient to a specialty hospital where she remained for the next nine weeks until she delivered her baby with the cord still wrapped around its neck. However, both mom and baby are fine.

I wish I could run interference for ALL pregnant moms when somebody drops the proverbial ball . . . but I can’t. So I wrote The Smart Mother’s Guide to a Better Pregnancy instead.

“A healthy pregnancy doesn’t just happen. It takes a smart mother who knows what to do.”