Maternity wards-Nurses/midwives/HCAs

[canihaveacoffeeplease]

Pregnant with my second, 1st was a homebirth so only had midwife care.

Looks like this one might be a hospital birth as naughty baby is still breech, just wondering what all the different staff do on antenatal/delivery/postnatal? Are midwives just there for delivery then on to nurse care? Do HCAs help in delivery rooms?

Sorry for randomness of this question, terrified of hospitals and hospital birth and just want to be as prepared as possible!

[Samkate]

Hi
I'm not sure of the role of HCAs in this instance to be honest. I never met one when I was induced and in hospital for two days.
Nurses aren't involved in your care at all. You are fully looked after by a midwife, and when you're at the pushing stage, two midwives will be with you.
Nurses can work in the special care baby unit looking after poorly babies, but that's the only time.
Pregnant women are only looked after by midwives.

[PerspicaciaTick]

All nursing care before, during and after was provided by MWs. The HCA made tea and toast after the birth, cleaned up the labour room and kept an eye on the baby while DH took me for a shower. Post-natally the HCAs did observations and made unhelpful comments about BFing and jaundice.

[elliejjtiny]

Midwives do the deliveries and all the senior nurse type stuff. MCA's are the maternity equivalent of HCA's. Unqualified but some of them are very experienced. They will do things like bring meals, help the ladies who can't move, weigh babies, take temperatures and things like that. They work in postnatal and antenatal wards but not sure about delivery as I never saw any there. There was a few on the birth centre though. I think they can do extra training to learn to do other things too as one MCA took my blood when I was pregnant with ds5. He was brilliant too, got it first time and I normally have to have an anaesthetist have several goes. He was so good he ended up doing all my bloods for the rest of the pregnancy.

[FizzyFeet]

Can you talk to your community midwife about it? It may vary from hospital to hospital. In our area community. Midwives often do stints in the hospital delivery suite etc, so are au fait with current practice.

My delivery was different (planned c section so more doctors than midwives) but I had a huge amount of help postnatally from midwives (looking after pain meds, blood pressure obs) and maternity assistants who helped with breastfeeding and personal care after my c-section. They were great! Also my hospital is a teaching hospital so had lots of trainee midwives as various stages of their training around - some shadowing their mentor midwives and some working independently.

[canihaveacoffeeplease]

Thanks so much everyone, that helps a lot. Will definitely have a chat with my midwife, she's been fab so far so hopefully will be able to help.

Still time to turn so fingers crossed!

[pinguina16]

Midwives write notes, LOTS of notes.

[Mummyme87]

Hospital dependent. A midwife will catch your baby, care for you antenatally and do majority of your postnatal care. Some hospitals have nurses who may care for you postnatally particularly if you have a CS. HCA/MCA may care for you doing obs, breastfeeding support, baby care. Some hospitals have nursery nurses doing baby obs, blood sugar testing, etc