April 2010

I wrote the following on Easter Sunday, 2010 – a day that will forever be burned into my memory. I plan to write a series of posts that will document my perspective of the last four weeks of my daughter’s – and my – experience in the NICU at a local community hospital that is supposed to be a five-star hospital. For us, with the exception of gaining a beautiful new baby girl in our family, this experience was a nightmare, and the joy of childbirth, newborn care, and first-time mommy-hood was irretrievably stolen from my daughter. I will also be privately writing a letter to the hospital with more details and feedback so that hopefully the next young woman who gives birth there in similar circumstances as my daughter will have a better experience.

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Stereotypes have some basis in reality and fact but they are usually a broad and inaccurate generalization. They are a twisted belief that one person’s image and actions are representative of all the people in that category. As humans, we love to categorize things, put labels on them, and make judgments so that we can try to understand that which we do not truly understand. We judge others based on stereotypes. It’s human nature. I’ve done it. We all do it. The problem occurs, I believe, when that stereotyping causes harm to another person.

As humans, we all also have our own unique set of glasses through which we view the world – glasses that are tinted with our own life experiences and the conclusions we’ve come to about the world around us based on those experiences. For example, perhaps someone had an alcoholic father who cheated on their mother. The glasses they wear may filter all cheating men as alcoholics, or all alcoholics as cheaters, or men as losers in general. It’s an unfair judgment, not true, but relatively harmless as long as that judgment isn’t expressed through derogatory, degrading, or judgmental words towards another.

Through maturity and further life experiences, I think most people change their glasses for new, clearer ones, and they realize the world isn’t so black and white and that everyone is unique. They learn that just because one person was that way doesn’t mean they all are.

I’ve tried to mature and develop that same ability to see life as a zillion shades of gray and everyone as being unique. Recently, however, I’ve been learning more and more that some people, regardless of seeming maturity or age, just plain judge without gathering evidence or hearing all the facts in the case, and stereotype others based on partial or faulty evidence.

For the past four weeks, my granddaughter has been in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) because of doctor-prescribed pain medications that my daughter took – as prescribed, and not recreationally or abusively -  while pregnant, which now the baby needs to be weaned from. Had my daughter stopped these medications while she was pregnant, she would have miscarried. My daughter has consistently been open and honest with all her doctors about what she takes, she’s kept every doctor appointment, and followed doctor’s orders. She is physically dependent on these medications, but she is not an addict – and I know a thing or two about addicts and addictions.

I’ve been invited along on this journey with my daughter, and for all of her prenatal visits, childbirth, and post-partum care, I have been her primary support. As a support person, I am silent until asked to speak up. But I’m observant. I notice many things that others don’t. I see body language others might miss. I see knowing looks between nurses when my daughter walks past. I hear the conflicting comments and the innuendos or implied perception barely concealed in the nurse’s tone of voice. I notice the widely disparate attitudes toward my daughter – baby’s mama – that range from compassion, support, and education to disdain, condescension, and superiority.

When this happens, my mama-bear glasses get donned and I speak up. I speak up to explain to the nurses the path my daughter has walked – not that it’s really any of their business, but clearly they’ve formed incorrect opinions, and their actions and words based on these faulty perceptions are harming my daughter. She may have pink hair, tattoos, and be a single-unemployed-nearly-29-year-old-still-living-with-mom but they don’t know why this is, what led up to her current situation, nor do they stop and inquire or try to get to know my daughter. Instead they categorize her with drug addicted moms whose main focus is the next fix.

Today’s events were the last straw in this saga for us. We’ve sat and tried to deal with this lot we’re stuck until the baby is well enough to go home. My daughter has been polite, asked questions respectfully, spoken to the proper people to advocate for herself and her baby. But we keep coming up against the few nurses – and a specific doctor – who assume incorrectly that my daughter is a drug addict. They assume that she doesn’t have her daughter’s interests at heart. They assume that she will not be able to take care of her baby when baby goes home. They assume – too much. And they assume wrongly.

*** to be continued….

Tagged as: doctors, drug addiction, hospitals, judgmentalism, nurses, patient care, patient rights, stereotypes

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