Pittsburgh Mamas--Magee? What gives?

[cappuccinosmom]

I know that I have heard good things about Magee Hospital and the birthing center there, pretty sure I saw some positive comments on MDC, too.

However, just this quarter my sister has been doing her OB and peds clinicals there, and she came away with a *very* poor impression.  She observed serious insensitivity on the part of the nurses, major intervention pushing, and just general crappiness.  And she is utterly nonplussed by the postpartum area as well.

Has something changed recently?  Or is it possible her clinicals were just bad timing and she's run into some awful nurses by coincidence?

[parsley]

I don't have much good to say about Magee at this point! 

[mum2sarah]

I've heard good and bad about Magee.  I was born there and my mom always talks about how I had an allergic reaction to the pads they put in the little newborn cradles and how, when they discovered this, they put a sign on my cradle saying "no blue pads" but someone put me on one again anyway and I had a horrible rash on my face :(.  Now obviously that was a long time ago (1970's) and I'm sure a lot has changed, but I personally felt that if they couldn't take care of me as a newborn I didn't feel comfortable birthing there.  DH is 8 years younger than me and was born there in the 80's and his mom seemed to have no bad words to say about it (though she was electively induced at 38 weeks so she and I have very different ideas about an ideal birth).  That said, I have gone to Magee for some things such as ultrasound and a needle biopsy for a breast lump, and it seemed ok for those services though it is clear that they are so big and impersonal--you feel more like a number than a person...  I think Magee would be where I would turn if I had a high risk pregnancy and needed a lot of high tech interventions, but for a normal birth (assuming you are not looking for a home birth), I highly recommend The Midwife Center for Birth and Women's Health.  I had a great experience there. I've birthed in all three environments: hospital, home, and birth center, and would definitely go back to The Midwife Center for future births.

[Addie]

I had DS there with the midwives in 2009, and I'll be having my second with them in the spring. I had a great experience, personally. It might have something to do with being a patient of the midwives, but there was absolutely no pressure towards interventions. I didn't have an IV, snacked and drank fluids during labor, was able to push in different positions. My L&D nurses were awesome - totally supportive of natural birth, one was even a doula on her own time. I was less thrilled with the postpartum area - it wasn't bad, just busier. I still had good nurses and no pressure to remove DS from the room. Supportive of nursing, too. It's such a HUGE hospital that I think you hear differing opinions, but my personal experience was good.

[momof2grls]

I was surprised at how impersonal the staff was during my stay.  The dr's would walk by in the hall or come into the room and not introduce themselves.  I h

ad many great nurses in  the NICU and then two that had been doing it too long!  I left there with a so-so opinion of the hospitsl.

[AprilM]

I just gave birth there and will say with 100% certainty that I will never step foot back in that hospital for as long as I live. I was with the Midwives of Magee for prenatal care and found them to be of no help whatsoever on any issues of concern I presented to them. I was a VBAC, so I probably got treated a bit different than a non VBAC'er, as they made me sit down with one of their overseeing OB's so he could tell me 'chance of success' of having a VBAC. Turns out I only had a 60% chance of successfully delivering vaginally.  I did have my VBAC after all, but it was not a good journey. I also had many questions about hospital routine infant procedures, like the vitamin K shot at birth. Each midwife that I met with and discussed this with had NO clue that the vitamin K shot had ever been linked to childhood leukemia, and they didn't bother at all to look into it for me. They did, however, try to convince me that I can't believe everything I read on the internet (about the vitamin K/leukemia connection) and completely dismissed my concerns altogether. I never went to my appointments with the intention of debating on anything with them, but it seemed they always had their claws out each time I came. Maybe because I was questioning everything??? Who knows.

Then when I gave birth to my son, the midwife that assisted was SO rude, my husband actually had to take her out into the hallway to ask her to keep her negative attitude out of the L&D room. Everything was going fine until the external fetal monitors showed my baby's heartrate to be a bit erratic at 10 centimeters, so right away they started talking C Section. They ended up vacuuming my son out and cutting me from hole to hole to get him out as quickly as possible. My recovery was just as bad as my previous c section. My doula was there with me, who is also a homebirth midwife, and she told me that what she saw of my baby's heartrate, it was not a true emergency, and she felt the staff was jumping the gun and unnecessarily intervened. I will never really know the truth.

They also put antibiotics into my IV without telling me first because I was running a slight fever. Although I told them I had been running a slight fever for days because I had bronchitis and everyone in my family had been sick that whole week. As a result of the antibiotics, my baby got a yeast infection from hell all over his poor little stomach that lasted for 2 weeks! It was just aweful!

Oh, and how can I forget to mention how rude the admissions staff was when I arrived at 10 centimeters and totally ready to push.....they had an aid wheel me to an admission waiting room, and my contractions were so hard, I asked him to stop when they came on. The emergency dept lady comes running up and starts yelling at the aid for stopping upon my request. My husband laid into her too after that. Then, they stick me in their waiting room with other patients, sit me on a chair while my water was breaking all over their chairs. I was yelling out in pain, people were staring, and I seriously almost had my baby on their stupid floor!

I also had a sinus infection so bad it was blocking up my nose, and since I was breathing really hard through my contractions, my mouth was pasty dry and I was begging them for water or ice. They flat out refused me, even thought I felt like I was literally suffocating, and told me because I 'might' be a C Section, I wasn't allowed any liquids. Assholes! Sorry, just reliving this experience is making my blood boil. There's much more, but I just can't go there yet....

So, yeah, that's what I think of Magee.