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AIBU?

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Original poster

To Ask for your experiences of post natal wards

457 replies

RozziPringle · 26/07/2011 16:57

Mine was Noisy and hot with incredibly overworked midwives. The most memorable incident was around 12 hours after a c-section i was made to get out of bed to walk along 5 corridors to shower, doubled over in agony. When i told the widwife i wasnt going to make it and i felt faint she tutted and muttered about me been lazy under her breath.
There were some fantastic midwives Don't get me wrong but they seemed few and far between.
Im due to give birth in 3 weeks and im dreading going through all this again

OP posts:
slightlyunbalanced · 26/07/2011 16:59

Bloody awful - thats why my 2nd and 3rd children were born at home......where I also knew it was clean, I wouldn't contract MRSA and I could recognise the food being served Hmm

MrsKravitz · 26/07/2011 17:01

Horrible horrible horrible. Left me with a lifelong dislike of midwives.

ReelAroundTheFountain · 26/07/2011 17:01

Awful post-natal care. Midwives on the whole ok but hard to get hold of, a couple of fantastic nurses but also some total horrors.

I have to say though that with dc2 I was much less upset by the rubbish care as I was more confident myself. I also asked approx every 8 minutes if I could go home Grin

HarrietJones · 26/07/2011 17:02

I could recognise the food. It was a microwaved potato. The MW brought me some cheese but did query the lack of salad etc as she had just had one in the canteen for lunch!

mycatoscar · 26/07/2011 17:03

Very noisy very hot and midwives pretty uncaring and insensitive. But the bathrooms were just opposite my bed so that was handy, and there was nice cake in the kitchen if you got there first too.

If I had to go through it all again I would leave as soon as humanly possible or go for a home birth - am pretty convinced that the experience of the PN Ward and attitude of midwives there and through my labour are what triggered my post natal depression which led to me being on AD's for nearly 2 years. DH says he left a smiley happy wife cuddling his baby and returned 12 hours later to a complete stranger Sad

I dont ever plan to have another baby.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 26/07/2011 17:03

YANBU Sounds like the hospital I was in back in 2000. Felt like once you'd had your baby, you were taking up space and being a bit of a nuisance f you dared ask for help! I'm sure things have improved since and hope the same is true at your place...

MrsKravitz · 26/07/2011 17:03

I got 2 breakfasts in 6 days. No other food except a packet of mints and a sandwich from the petrol station.

jeckadeck · 26/07/2011 17:06

My postnatal experience was dominated by the feeling that getting me to breastfeed through the night was more important than anything else including my own sanity and even survival. Within three hours of an 18-ish hour labour and a spinal block people were crawling over me like ants trying to get me to breastfeed and at one point I had two separate lactation consultants in the cubicle with me telling me different (and both completely opposed) ways to breastfeed. I can't help wondering if at least part of the reason why a lot of women throw in the towel with breastfeeding is because the midwives go for quantity over quality in that they bully women endlessly about it but don't really think about the impact its having or try to calibrate it to the needs of the individual. Three days later when I was still unable to breastfeed they declined to discharge me, effectively pathologizing me for it. It really stuck in the craw and to this day I partly blame the midwives and their almost Stalinist overzealousness for the fact that I could never breastfeed.

emsies · 26/07/2011 17:08

Pretty awful in my case post c section. THey really resented having to come to lift the baby as I couldn't - yet I was exhausted and scared silly of falling asleep with it in the dinky hospital bed. Hated it. Mainly due their short staffing.

Want a home birth this time but weighing up options as vbacs can be risky at home apparently :

PumpkinBones · 26/07/2011 17:08

Horrible, noisy, overstretched staff, and some frankly unpleasant ones (I will never forget the face of the frightened woman in the bed next to me, she spoke hardly any English, had practically just delivered, and the midwife was shouting at her (shouting being the universally recognised way of communicating with people who don't speak the same language as you) "WHERE ARE YOUR SANITARY TOWELS? WE CAN'T GIVE YOU ANY, IF YOU HAVEN'T BROUGHT SOME, WE CAN'T PROVIDE THEM, WE DON'T HAVE THEM HERE" - which if nothing else, was a total lie. Late pain medication (c-section), missing meals, it was all horrible. I pleaded to be discharged 48 hrs after c-section with DS2, and won't be going back!

Elemis · 26/07/2011 17:09

horrendous.
I put in an official complaint
The staff were so patronising
The shower rooms were covered in blood, seriously.
4 days I was there.
I had earplugs taken out of my ears "you won't be able to hear your baby" "Er,he is 3 floors down in neo-natal"
I was woken up and made to feel completely useless "your baby needs feeding" shouted at me. I had asked them to call me when he needed feeding, but didn't need shouting at.

the sister was lovely and the breast-feeding helpers were nice too.The neo-natal care was fantastic, and my midwives in labour were excellent.

PumpkinBones · 26/07/2011 17:10

emsies I had that too. With DS1 I was so scared to ring them again I sort of hoicked him back into the plastic cot, and still get the chills torturing myself I could have dropped him - was 6 hours after my section! With DS2 I was told off for having him in the bed with me...

catgirl1976 · 26/07/2011 17:10

I am pg my first and I swear all the horror stories about childbirth haven't made me flinch, but the stories about post natal care are terrifying me. I am speaking to my MW at my next appointment next week about a home birth and if that isn't an option and I have to go to hospital I plan to discharge myself immediatly after I give birth (barring any serious complications).

I have not heard one good thing about post natal care. It is really worrying me.

LineRunner · 26/07/2011 17:11

Ther are places where women scream 'I want to go home'.

allhailtheaubergine · 26/07/2011 17:11

Horrible :(

6 of us squashed in a room built for 4. I had to move a chest of drawers to get out of my curtained 'cubicle'.

The midwives were awful. Aggressive, dismissive, so unapproachable. And then one got cross with me for walking to the loo and having a wobble on my way home. Well it was that or wet the bed Hmm.

Before my medication wore off my baby did the most enormous meconium poo from her shoulders to her ankles. I was worried about dropping her while cleaning her up I was so woozy and wobbly, so I asked for some help. Was laughed at and told that there was a shift change, and I had to look after my own baby. One wonderful, lovely lady - not a midwife, a ward helper of some sort - stayed and helped me bath my little girl. I was so grateful to her. I wrote her a thank you specially. I'm getting tearful just remembering how wonderful it was to have someone be nice to me.

Then second time they kept telling me I could go home in 30 minutes as soon as the paperwork was finished... for 5 days. 5 fucking days I was on that ward waiting for them to decide if I could go home, all the time thinking I was about to leave.

I felt worst for the poor c-sec women whose babies would cry and they would call and call for someone to come and pass them to them.

No bf support.

MrsKravitz · 26/07/2011 17:12

I wonder if we all went to the same Hopsital

MrsKravitz · 26/07/2011 17:13

hoSpital

thesurgeonsmate · 26/07/2011 17:14

Marvellous. Really, really good. Was best start dd could possibly have had in life.

x2boys · 26/07/2011 17:14

pretty awful i had to stay overnight after having both my babies first time because i had i v antibiotics during labour second time after a ventouse delivery hardly saw a midwife and couldnt wait to get out of there the delivery suite was very good though

notso · 26/07/2011 17:14

I have had three completely different experiences on the same post-natal ward.
With DD it was busy (too many visitors, no set visiting hours) and a little noisy but the care and cleanliness were brilliant.
DS1 fantastic, I was the only mum who stayed overnight. Staff were very attentive had one to one breastfeeding support, again cleanliness etc were top notch.
DS2 couldn't wait to get home. Babies screaming all night while the mothers were going in and out for cigarettes. It was roasting because the heating was stuck on, staff were really overworked.
Worse, when I was referred back in the day after coming home because I had a suspected DVT and a fever and ds was jaundiced we had to wait for 8 hours in a cupboard because they didn't know if we should be on the post natal ward or on childrens ward.

gallicgirl · 26/07/2011 17:16

It's stories like these that made me want a home birth. Seriously.

I did spend a couple of days on a baby ward when DD was a week old and my experience was only slightly better (own room and bathroom). The nicest person I met was the man who brought the meals around. Barely saw any nurses at all.

Firawla · 26/07/2011 17:18

all these stories are horrible :( worrying me a bit as im going into hosp @ end of next week! i think i got quite lucky with the hospital i was in before. yes, was quite noisy @ times and very hot, overstaffed.. but nothing like as bad as some of these things people are saying. atleast most of the midwifes and staff were helpful and it was fairly clean and we got food brought round etc
a couple of midwifes were a bit brusk and lacking in sympathy but did have some lovely ones. noone should have midwifes shouting at them and calling them lazy etc! that is so out of order

DirtyBit · 26/07/2011 17:20

You got to wait 12 hours for a shower? I had to have one 7 hours after c-section! My legs were still numb!
I remember it being too hot, but not that noisy. I was the only one out of 4 trying (and struggling) to breastfeed, so while the other babies were relatively quiet, mine was shrieking all night. They took her away from me both nights that I was in hopsital, so people could sleep. It made me feel like a failure.

Everything took ages to do as well, I needed pain killers, it took over an hour, I would be told someone would be there to see me in the next 10 minutes, it took over an hour.

Most of the midwives were lovely though, and did give me a lot of support.

WasSparklies · 26/07/2011 17:21

First time dreadful (VB with complications) - but most problems were due to lack of resources
Second time dreadful (EMCS) - labour/delivery fine, postnatal ward horrendous mostly thanks to some really nasty midwives although some were lovely
Third time fine (ELCS) - hardly luxury but reasonably resourced and staff were nice

Different hospitals for each of them.. finally found a hospital that was okay, although I've heard people criticise it too! Maybe they'd never been to the first two I tried..

KAZAMM · 26/07/2011 17:21

I'm shocked reading all these because my care was pretty good. Quiet ward and really friendly staff who made time to chat when they came to check on us.

The woman in the bed opposite me had problems with breastfeeding and I remember one midwife staying with her for over an hour reassuring her and then showing her DP how to help when he came in at visiting time.

I'm in Scotland though and I interviewed the director for the Royal College of Midwives last year (Scotland Branch). She basically said that there is no shortage of Midwives in Scotland compared to England. The experiences above just sound horrific.