If you would like to make peace with your maker, please PM pinktricam.

From working with nurses over three summers in a large government clinic (for government workers), I have to add that every female patient very early on is asked if they are pregnant without even knowing the symptoms. And if any of the symptoms are nausea dizziness etc. that last longer than a week, pregnancy becomes the number one suspect.

I've heard numerous female patients complain that they are being "accused" of being pregnant. Perhaps pissed or embarrassed because it insinuates a behavior that preceded it.

But you know what, the doctors ended up being correct many more times than those who complained otherwise. From a doctor's standpoint, it happens so often, that he/she would be negligent not to thoroughly probe the issue.

Do women get pissed off anyway? Some do. Is the doctor professional. From my experience, Yes.

So give your doctor the benefit of the doubt. An answer of "no" to "Are you pregnant?", is not sufficient enough to end the issue; if you haven't had this experience already.

This was the number one complaint in college of the girls going to the student health clinic! The only thing is, they would go in with say.... a sprained ankle or flu like symptoms (no nausea at all) and the pregnancy question would always be first on their lips!

That's because of several reasons, but the big one is that some medications are not safe to take if the woman is pregnant. Many prescription medications will cross the placenta and have negative effects on the fetal development (from mild birth defects to fetal death.)

Hmmm, my friends made it out to be that this was more of trying to figure out if they were pregnant, but I suppose they could have been mistaken. We are engineers not doctors ;)

Oh wait, some of them were biomedical engineers....oh well.

Uh, yeah. That's my point. The doctor WAS trying to figure out if she was pregnant, in order to facilitate better care.

Look at it this way: Taking your example of a sprained ankle, there are two options for pain pills to relieve the discomfort. One pill costs $2.50 for a bottle of 20 pills, but is known to be harmful to a developing fetus. The other option costs $20 for a bottle of 20 pills, but is safe for the fetus.

The other thing is that it is not uncommon for a woman to be in the early stages of pregnancy and not know it, yet it is those early stages where certain lifestyle choices (alcohol, smoking, drug use, etc.) can have a great impact on the fetus. Wouldn't most reasonable women want to know this, so as to make an informed choice?


Yeah. Being a biomedical engineer is just the same as being a doctor. Right.

I very rarely have women get upset with me when I ask them if they're pregnant. Why? Because I realize it's a sensitive issue for some people and I say something like "Now, I have to ask you a personal question. It's not because I'm trying to pry, but it will help me to give you the best medical care possible and this is just a routine question that I ask all women. Is there any chance you could be pregnant?" Again, it's not necessarily what you say, it's how you say it.

Then again, you'd be surprised how often there's a 13-year old girl or a 48-year old woman or a nun who swears there is absolutely no chance she's pregnant because she's never had sex... and yet the pregnancy test comes back positive. Hmm.

My point is that I don't get why it's so hard for some of the guys who were posting in this thread (especially given that it's in the Ladies Room) to see that some women might be a bit touchy about the whole pregnancy issue.

I am a doctor.

Of Love..........

hmmmm, just a few thoughts. this thread keep going's back and forth from good, on topic posts to WTF posts".

Just a question for the guys who keep coming back to this thread with dumbass remarks................why? Obviously, you have nothing to add to the OP's original question.

this is a highly moderated forum.......as stated many times. off topic posts will be removed and sent the the recycle bin

keep your off topic stuff in community.

I repeat...

Have patience, marge. He's an attorney. Aside from being a Pavlovian response with that ilk, he's usually paid to repeat.

After reading this, I keep checking back in to see when the OP posts up to tell us that she was indeed pregnant.

Or on the off chance that there was something else wrong, what it was.

It's been 8 days since her last post, so I figure she's been to the Doc. So why the silence?

W
I called my Doc, and will go for a check up...seems like the prudent thing to do. .

thanks for standing up and putting a stop to the ridiculous responses (sexually based) to my query. it just confirms my sense that this site is full of guys who don't really climb rocks or care about other climbers but surf the women's room to get they're rocks off.
If you guys were really climbers you'd have ethics and a deep sense of integrity.

I would be interested to see what was making her sick

Probably some bad sushi...

This thread represents minutes of my life that I'll never get back. Ever.

Probably some bad sushi...

This thread represents minutes of my life that I'll never get back. Ever.