How do you "drop" a OB?

[mrscompgeek]

Ok, to start off I am not pregnant, just had our first baby 3 months ago actually. Im just VERY much a researcher, lol. I had a pretty easy homebirth with my daughter but pretty tramatic after birth with tearing/ER trip/and stitches. Anyways, we arent sure what we will decide to do with the next child, if it will be a homebirth or hospital or what. But I would like to find a OB dr to do my yearly checkups and stuff and also to do prenatal care for my next pregnancy. my question is if I do the first few months prenatal care with my OB and then decide to do a homebirth how do you tell the Ob dr? I dont want any bad waves or anything cause I want to keep my OB for my yearly exams and stuff later on so i dont want to drop them totally. . . . How did you do it? Did you tell your OB you were going to do a homebirth or did you just stop going to appointments? If you stopped going what did you say then when you went in for a 6 week checkup with a baby? Or what did they say?

[lovermont]

double posted- sorry!

[lovermont]

There are gyn's that don't do birth. Maybe that's the option for you?
could you see a midwife for yearly exams instead of an ob?

[Pepper44]

I just stopped going, I didn't schedule any more prenatal visits when I was done with their back-up care. (I went for the 1st trimester.)

They eventually called me and asked if I wanted to continue care and wanted to know if they had offended me in any way or if their services were alright. I just told them that I'd decided to have a homebirth but to please keep my records on file because I would return for general womanly care in the future, they said ok we will, and that was that!

[Youngfrankenstein]

I would also stop showing up. I never went in for my post partum visit. They called to schedule again and I just told them I had another HCP. She asked who and I just said a homebirth midwife and hung up....

I did do parallel care for 99% of my pregnancy. FYI

[mrscompgeek]

We dont have CNM's here, only homebirth midwives and they dont do GYN appointments. There is not any CNMs for 90 miles at least. Our only choice around here is OBs or illegal home birth midwives.

[nikirj]

It's WAY easier than you think.

Unless you also go out with your OB for coffee, letting the receptionist know "I'm switching my care to another provider, please expect my records request sometime soon" should be plenty. No matter how much you like your OB or how connected s/he seems when you're in the office, almost none of them have light enough client loads to track you in any sort of emotional way once you've physically left the office and are out of their immediate awareness.

[SashaBear]

Why do you want the OB to do early prenatal care?

[Nicole730]

Could you ask the homebirth midwives if any of the OB/GYN's are homebirth friendly? That way you won't have problems with parallel care or stopping OB care if you decide on a homebirth? Or did you mean homebirths are illegal? In which case most OB's probably wouldn't be openly homebirth friendly.

[EMandM]

I just dropped my OB at 14 weeks and transferred care to my midwife. I told her at my last appointment that I was going to be transferring care to a HB midwife and asked her if she would keep me on her records for backup care if needed. She said yes. It was as simple as that, no drama, no burned bridges.

Good luck to you when you are ready. I hope all goes well.

[wbg]

My OB dropped me after I returned from my HB. I just slipped off the radar and they did not notice. But when I returned they asked and then flipped out re the home birth.

So I switched to my MWs back up OB. I figure since he supports home birth, it makes sense that he would be more accepting of my choice to birth at home and then return to his care if I wanted. I did not have the best connection with my MW, otherwise I would probably just choose to continue care with her.

So my advice is find a midwifery practice that offers well women care as well, or find an OB that is supportive of or open to MWs/ homebirth etc.

[mrscompgeek]

Originally Posted by SashaBear

Why do you want the OB to do early prenatal care?

because the midwife prefers that you have some medical exams/test during pregnancy and because I like to have ultrasounds done.

Originally Posted by Nicole730

Could you ask the homebirth midwives if any of the OB/GYN's are homebirth friendly? That way you won't have problems with parallel care or stopping OB care if you decide on a homebirth? Or did you mean homebirths are illegal? In which case most OB's probably wouldn't be openly homebirth friendly.

Originally Posted by wbg

My OB dropped me after I returned from my HB. I just slipped off the radar and they did not notice. But when I returned they asked and then flipped out re the home birth.

So I switched to my MWs back up OB. I figure since he supports home birth, it makes sense that he would be more accepting of my choice to birth at home and then return to his care if I wanted. I did not have the best connection with my MW, otherwise I would probably just choose to continue care with her.

So my advice is find a midwifery practice that offers well women care as well, or find an OB that is supportive of or open to MWs/ homebirth etc.

We dont have midwives that offer GYN care around here. Its not a option. We have 2 homebirth midwives within 2 hours and thats it. The only OB that is homebirth friendly is 1-1/2 hours away and with my last birth i had to transfer and had to use the closest hospital to me and the OB was not homebirth friendly.

[wbg]

Hmm....that does limit your options. Well, I guess either you tell the truth, but go in prepared. Tell your OB, that for personal reasons you are choosing to give birth at home, and while you respect that he might not agree or approve, you would be very grateful if he would keep his opinions to himself. Tell him that you value his medical care and attention in all areas and would like to continue to see him postpartum, but are choosing a different medical model for the actual birth. Or, option B...you lie! Tell him you will be out of state for a few months and then return to his care postpartum!, Or even better, a simple oops....labor was so easy I did not know what was going on till the baby dropped onto my living room floor! Oh well, alls well that ends well!

On the other hand when choosing an OB, I would still take care to interview and pick one that supports natural childbirth. They might not support home birth, but picking one who believes in natural childbirth and minimal intervention will be more likely to be open minded and respectful of your choices. Or not? I would post in finding your tribe for peoples views on local OBs. The good and the bad.

Good luck Mama. And congrats on your little girl.

[laughingfox]

I just stopped seeing the OB I started DD's pregnancy with. I really doubt his office ever noticed.

In my experience, homebirth-friendly Family Doctors are a lot easier to find than homebirth-friendly OB-GYNs.
My current OB is not homebirth friendly, and although she knows I had DD at home, she doesn't know I'm pregnant now and won't see me again until my next annual exam (which should be a week after my due date, but I'm going to schedule it 2 months after the birth).

If my OB freaks out about the homebirth, I'm just going to switch back to my regular Family Doctor/MD for annuals. If you have an MD, I'd ask if they could handle the testing and order ultrasounds for you.

[Nicole730]

Originally Posted by mrscompgeek

We dont have CNM's here, only homebirth midwives and they dont do GYN appointments. There is not any CNMs for 90 miles at least. Our only choice around here is OBs or illegal home birth midwives.

I'm still confused on the illegal part, so you mean it would be illegal for a homebirth midwife to give you a gynecological exam? Would they still do it even though it was illegal? Because that kind of illegality does not seem like a big deal to me...if she were to find something wrong...then schedule with some random Dr. and not tell that you already had someone check it out.

For the 6 week postpartum check up, I would assume your midwife could do that? My midwife does that check up, as well as all newborn checks during the first 2 weeks.

Or, try and find a Family Practice Doctor - like PP said - that would be willing to work with you. My son sees a family practice Dr. who is totally cool with homebirth (and actually my parallel care Dr. is also family practice) - they should do yearly check ups.

[mrscompgeek]

Im not sure how/why its illegal for a homebirth midwife to do gyn exams but it is. I wish so bad we had a CNM around here!! My town is sooo not natural friendly.
We do have 2 family physicians that do GYN work but I havent heard anything about how natural friendly they are. Our Family doctor we use currently doesnt do GYN/OB stuff I dont think. I just sent a email to the hospital director to see if he does but Im almost positive he doesnt.

[SashaBear]

I called the hospital and got the two FP that do OB. I don't know about Dr. Jennifer Richardson. But I know that JR Hoffmann and his wife Rose are breastfeeding, babywearing, non-vaxing/delay vaxing parents.

[mrscompgeek]

is hoffman in petersburg though right??

[SashaBear]

No Hoffman is not in Petersburg. He's on St. Charles. And I just thought of this . . . Dr. Luff in Petersburg does OB so the hospital didn't even tell me correctly.

[Mariposa40]

Well, when I was seeing an OB at the start of my pregnancy, I would see her every two months and in between I would see her nurse practicioner. I told the Nurse Pr. that I was thinking of a home birth, and she said, "You have to make the decision that feels right for you." She actually had a midwife attended birth in the hospital, even though she works for an OB. Then when I started seeing the midwife I called the OB's office to cancel my appointments and transfer my records. I did get a call from the OB wanting to make sure that nothing had happened in the office that upset me, and I just said that I had decided on a home birth. I imagine I can still go back there afterwards, though I'm thinking I might just find a family practice doctor for me and for the baby and get everything taken care of at once. But it sounds like you have a lot fewer options where you live, so I'm not sure how helpful my experience is.