Shouted at by male midwife mid panic attack

It's reflective of poor maternity care and poor mental health support in the UK.

The NHS sausage factory mentality doesn't work for either. It's particularly poor where the two intersect.

sausage factory?

Yes where patients are processed like meat rather than cared for like humans with individual needs including mental health.

The NHS has an issue with maternity care being like a battery farm or factory with a one size fits all appropriate.

With hideous consequences.

And actually sausage is appropriate because it's particularly bad at dealing with womens health.

I was on a course once. People with different careers were on it.

We had to stand up and introduce ourselves. The man next to me was a doctor.

We sat back down and chatted for a bit. I sai something like "what is it like being a doctor these days".

He said "well I'm a gynaecologist, so I really like it" And he gave a big smile.

It really made me wonder why some men go into gynaecology

It really made me wonder why some men go into gynaecology

It's because it's a great career and one of the few you can work in both medicine and surgery. It's flexible and offers a good work-life balance. The ones I know love Caesarians in particular because they can schedule them in around their golfing timetables. 😬

Why does it matter if she named the hospital?

Her experience isn't altered. It's still horrific.

Novel thought here.

Perhaps the hospital - which already knows it's failing cos of its CQC inspection - should, y'know, improve.

Or maybe I'm out on a limb here with that one.

No that's not what i meant.

To clarify, he smiled in a sexual way and said "well I'm a gynaecologist, so I really like it"

I think it's naive to think that some men don't specialise in it, so they can be near lots of vaginas

Eh? How do you know he smiled in a sexual way? It's more likely he assumed you knew how great it is to be a gynaecologist. Believe me, gynaecology is not the job you want if you enjoy looking at fannies.

Because I was there and you weren't.

I know.

I've heard men talking about being a doctor in a professional way before.

And I've seen men smile in a sexual way.

He smiled in a sexual way.

Ok. If you say so.

@Curlyboot doesn't seem to be a huge fan of women and womens rights in general so their comments here are not surprising

To all the posters criticising OP for how she should have handled things in the room, you really don't know in advance how PTSD is going to make you react in scenarios that trigger you. OP had (stated on her notes) a legitimate need not to be examined intimately by a man and on top of that was undergoing fresh trauma of miscarriage. It would have been somewhat out of her control.

It is unlikely that a woman would be aggressive, (fight) because our trauma reactions to male violence are our bodies trying to keep us safe. It makes little sense for women to be aggressive towards males because we have an inherent understanding of males' superior strength; it's too dangerous.

More likely reactions include trying to escape (flight), freezing or appeasing. One might come across as a bit incoherent.

This is why it is SO important to be able to state ahead of time that you need female HCPs as much as possible. And SO important that staff understand and expect scenarios like this. ESPECIALLY a male HCP working with women!

It is unbelievable that in 2024 all health care settings aren't fully on board with being trauma informed. This is hardly a unique scenario given the sheer numbers of women abused by men.

Do you not think it's pretty disgusting that they say they love doing caesarians, because they can fit them in around their golfing.

I had an incredibly traumatic birth with my first child, and I remember sharing my experience with an expat group that I was part of (I delivered abroad). Most people responded with very encouraging, empathetic messages. One woman wrote 'While we're sharing experiences about this hospital, I had excellent care...etc etc'. She went on to detail how fabulous the care was, how wonderfully the staff treated her and how she would recommend it to everyone. Underneath my post, where I talked about level of treatment that left me with PTSD.

Maybe she way trying to balance my post, in which I was warning other pregnant women and finally reaching out and voicing my story. It felt like an almighty kick in the teeth, like I was being stupid, like I was making it up, like my voice didn't matter. It didn't feel like balance, it felt like being ignored.

It set me back in my healing and I spiralled for days afterwards. It feels like another way of saying, 'I'm not listening'. It's been a decade since I read 'While we're sharing...' and I still feel a lingering pain over it now. I've always wondered why she wrote that. Now I know. Balance.

It's devastating. Shoes utter ignorance both of the the importance of the interconnected biological processes of infant and mother around birth and of the lived experience of being a mother who needs a caesarean.

Yes. They're all assholes. But none of them are in the job because they have a kink for vaginas.

And that's why I posted what I did, because of the ignorance around anxiety related issues and the impact on recieving health care.

Women in this situation need reassurance and they need to understand what they say is important - perhaps in many respects MORE important than relating good experiences.

It can be devastating to some who is in a sensitive situation for someone to come along, and go 'well I had a great time'. They either have no idea of the devastating impact it can have or do it deliberately to cause harm.

I try to lean to the former, but continuing to post about balance and to cast doubt on events, AFTER it's been explained how these actions can and do cause harm, means I do think there are a few people who are happy to just put the boot in because essentially they 'dont believe in mental health issues' and the women should just get on with it.

Which is a view which belong in the 1970s or earlier.

The reality is that the NHS widely understands and knows about poor miscarriage care, they know about poor levels of care more widely in maternity, they know about issues with the treatment of women and the know about issues with single sex care. They acknowledge they could do a lot better on all of these fronts.

How can they do better, if those who have come off badly in known problem areas are discouraged from communicated their negative experiences, and why they were upset?

I feel nothing but compassion for you, OP. Hope you’re okay.

I'm sure the majority of them aren't.

But there's always a couple of perverts everywhere. Including the medical profession

Eg. Dr Larry nassar, the medical doctor, who volunteered to be a doctor with USA teen gymnastic team, because he was a paedophile

He was a family medicine doctor though not a paediatrician. There definitely are perverts in the medical profession, but they generally train in medicine because they want to be doctors, and then they take advantage of that position to abuse people, rather than train in a specific area of medicine specifically to abuse people/feed their kink. Otherwise paediatrics would be full of paedos, orthopedics full of foot fetishers, plastic surgery full of men wanting to be near boobs etc.

It's ignorant and harmful to look suspiciously at certain doctors because of their specialty. E.g male gynaecologists just want to be near vaginas.

Anyway, none of this is relevant to the OP. The MW wasn't being sexually inappropriate. He was being an asshole.

Again I never said anywhere that I looked at all doctors suspiciously because of their speciality.

I said that I met one gynaecologist who talked about being a gynaecologist, in my opinion, in a sexual way.

And it subsequently made me question why some men go into the area.

Yes we can move on

I think the next big scandal is going to be maternity care. The Nottingham enquiry has opened the floodgates and I am sure the things that have gone on there are not unique to that city.

I think it already IS the big scandal.

No next about it.