"Consultant out of line"

I am an obese woman who was pregnant at the time, and this complaint is about the care I received from a consultant I saw for my pre-delivery consultation.

I had a c-section a few years prior to this pregnancy and it was my intent to have a VBAC at Hedland Health Campus. Up until this point (30 something weeks pregnant) I had been met with nothing but the most absolute support from the obstetrics team in achieving my birthing goals, which was to labour at home and come to the hospital when required to deliver my baby. This came crashing down when I met with a consultant who I recall, though-out the entire consultation, told me the following things:

- You are too obese to birth a child vaginally

- I have worked with many obstetric cases and you are too obese, the risks of giving birth are too high and you should just have a c-section

- If you labour here, nobody here will be able to give you emergency anaesthetics, because you are too obese and your jaw is too recessed

- If you labour at home the results will be catastrophic

- The police will become involved if you labour at home

- C-sections don't make you any less of a mother

When I told the consultant if they weren’t comfortable supporting my birth plan that I am happy to go to a metropolitan hospital that could support me, they just needed to sign the paperwork saying I'm too high risk for them, I recall the consultant refused and said they needed to consult the obstetrics team to discuss my case.

I felt the consultant continued to berate me about my weight and my birth plans for the entire duration of the appointment.

I left the appointment feeling angry, deflated and confused. Why is a consultant giving me obstetric advice? Why is my weight all of a sudden such an issue when I'd actually lost 15kg during the pregnancy and my BMI was only 35 and the cut off, I believe, was 40? What would happen to my psyche if I did labour here and this consultant walked in to the room to consult me while in labour?

In the end the Hedland Obstetrics team agreed to send me to Perth where I had a successful VBAC and not a single person commented on my weight.

I have since had to have day surgery at HHC and the thought of seeing this consultant again caused me severe anxiety. I was lucky that the other consultant I saw was extremely supportive - my weight and my jaw were absolutely no issue.