To find midwife appointments a bit useless, and wish I could just switch them to online?

What you've said about not caring about safeguarding made me feel sick tbh. Anyone could find themselves in an abusive, dangerous situation. You'll think nothing of me as I work in elderly care and safeguarding is one of the most important things we do.

What are you expecting from this thread? For midwives to flood it apologising for doing their very important jobs which includes saving expectant mothers and babies lives?

Some women would give anything to have access to regular pre and post natal care.

This is so painfully accurate down to the phonics (which was 2.20 last Tuesday 😅). Midwife appointments are the least inconvenient parenting appointments!

Glad I'm not your midwife.....or child for that matter. If you think that's all that's happening at an appointment then you're mistaken, even if you're unaware of it. Perhaps you're not as smart as you think you are.

100%.

I would rather go to a midwife appointment every week during my pregnancy than another woman being abused not have the space to speak to a clinician alone, put a sticker on her form so the midwife gets her alone and can offer the appropriate support. OP is on one.

On what planet would you not want to hear your baby's heartbeat? All of the checks the better is what I say..

Just some reminders from the NICE guidelines so we remain factual:

1.2.30
Offer symphysis fundal height measurement at each antenatal appointment after 24+0 weeks (but no more frequently than every 2 weeks) for women with a singleton pregnancy unless the woman is having regular growth scans. Plot the measurement onto a growth chart in line with the NHS saving babies' lives care bundle version 2.

Discuss the topic of babies' movements with the woman after 24+0 weeks, and:

ask if she has any concerns about her baby's movements at each antenatal contact after 24+0 weeks

advise her to contact maternity services at any time of day or night if she has any concerns about her baby's movements or she notices reduced fetal movements after 24+0 weeks

assess the woman and baby if there are any concerns about the baby's movements.

Offer abdominal palpation at all appointments after 36+0 weeks to identify possible breech presentation for women with a singleton pregnancy.

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng201/chapter/recommendations

There is nothing about listening to the baby's heartbeat because it is of no clinical value.

Interesting - I'm considered a high risk pregnancy and my Obstetrics appointments have been phone calls !
i actually think that's a compleat waste of time. What can they possibly tell on a phone call?!! Give me a physical appointment any day. Your entitled to paid time off anyway.

I refused to deal with midwives after being present at a birth where midwives were present. Thankfully there was a private obstetrician on call.

I had a friend whose healthy baby died after midwives delayed calling a doctor. She almost died herself.

When I was pregnant I chose to go through a private obstetrician. You can choose your appointment days/times and when there was an issue with my labs she just phoned me at work. The obstetrician measured my stomach to make sure I was putting on enough weight at each appointment, managed my diabetes and performed ultrasound scans in her office.

I had a male midwife present at my c-section. He stayed up next to my head the entire time snd didn’t talk to me. The only thing he did was take a photo.

I don’t understand why you are complaining about something that you aren’t paying for privately. Of course you’re not going to receive the best care when you go through the NHS. Of course you need to take time off work to attend to appointments. Also, midwives check your blood pressure to see if you are developing pre-eclampsia - which isn’t something that patients can be trusted to do themselves.

Also, I’m in Australia. I wasn’t educated about vitamin K. It’s just dealt with by the paediatrician after I gave birth. It was something I didn’t even need to think about.

I suppose you could sign a waiver explaining that you take complete responsibility for anything that goes wrong, any condition diagnosed too late or not at all. If you were prepared to do that, fair enough.
Even that doesn't always work though.
I have experienced one person start legal action against the hospital, in spite of no fewer than 4 senior doctors telling her the consequences of refusing treatment, documenting every conversation and having witnesses sign the records.

Even more important for face to face appts than, unless you can record foetal position and measurement of baby, and listen to the heart beat yourself of course.

Edited to say as well that is good to build a rapport with your midwife, rather than meeting her for the first time later on. I used to love leaving work to go to them, have a little chat about any concerns, and what to expect.

Earlier on maybe. But after a certain point when they can listen to heart beat etc less so.

To be fair, auscultation at appointments doesnt tell us anything at all about the wellbeing of the baby. We would need to monitor to you for 20 to 30 mins on a CTG to have any idea of that. It isn't necessary to do it, but it is nice and creates a rapport between midwife, mum, wider family and baby.

Abdominal palpation - yes it is good to know baby is head down, but the measurements we do are not very accurate. Most other things about the baby's position are unhelpful to know before labour as it can easily change.

The only things with real clinical values worth checking is urine and blood pressure every visit. Not everyone does the blood pressure correctly alone nor do they read the urine test correctly so that's why self reporting isnt a first line approach but it is part of some people's care. You're also meant to be building a trusting bond with a midwife at these so you'll feel more comfortable disclosing any issues. But that's not how it works any more.

Everyone I know who had serious issues had them picked up at midwife appointments. And that often involves looking at you, checking you physically and asking other deeper questions.

I mean it’s important because even though you know how to dip urine and take blood pressure not every woman wants to/is able to correctly which puts unborn babies at risk because of the tons of conditions these 2 things can pick up. People who are not medically trained should not be doing potentially life saving medical tests/checks at home. Are they a tad inconvenient? Yes, but they are necessary…

Is this your first child?

This!

It’s not just about you OP, it’s checking your baby’s health too. Two of my friends had emergencies with their babies resulting in very early delivery that were picked up by a midwife.

If you value your personal convenience over the wellbeing of your baby, parenthood is going to be a bit of a shock.

(although having had 2 easy pregnancies I do agree they feel a bit pointless - but as others have said, they’re pointless until suddenly they’re not. It’s not a risk I was willing to take personally!)

Many don't have access to a midwife around the world so count yourself lucky and start putting your baby first by having these appointments. If you miss them social services can actually get involved.

Just don't go then it's pretty simple.

As someone who researches a lot for myself a lot of the information I'm patiently nodding my head to and I have no need of but, you do need a midwife to check urine, blood pressure, do fundal height measurements, listen to heartbeat. They are professionals, they'll be sharper at picking up issues and they'll be following procedures and meeting certain standards. The quality of people taking these measurements at home couldn't be trusted, it's something that need to be overseen by professionals.

But if you're short on time or logistically it's hard to attend appointments, I can see why the whole thing would be frustrating.

‘ travelling around the city "for a chat" about these things with someone who attended a lecture on this once, years ago, and now 90% of the time just regurgitates what is written on the NHS website really isn't of much help to me.’

I suspect there is a lot more ongoing training involved than that!

As you can see OP your view is an unpopular one on here but I am 100% with you. I found the appointments a waste of time, the midwives were generally friendly but often didn’t know what they were doing (some were very patronising especially towards my choice to have a c section) but I don’t think any really added value to my care during either of my pregnancies and it was generally a shit show trying to get appointments, constantly changed or running late, often had to have bloods taken multiple times as they lost the results etc. I was also having an elective c section both times and had a lot of private scans to reassure myself. Not wanting to take two to three hours out of a busy day to waste time on midwife appointments did not mean I was ill equipped to manage children as some posters are suggesting. Maternity services in this country are shockingly poor, and no it’s not free for me given I pay 50% of my income in taxes, so I don’t feel I need to be grateful at all. I would happily have gone private if I didn’t have to pay such high taxes already.

Also even given your examples you’re wrong. Dip stick urine tests at home can and often are not conclusive, but midwives can send them off for lab tests. Blood pressure monitors used at home exclusively can either miss patterns or show abnormally high readings, so some interpretation/ verification is needed.

Quite apart from this multiple conditions, physical and mental can be worked out by looking at these results as a baseline, but then things like how you look, pallor of skin, ankles, weight, how you seem, etc. All of these are needed to complete the picture and are almost impossible to verify online. They can be used to diagnose pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, SPD, dehydration, and serious mental health conditions.

You seem to have lost confidence in your midwives based on their failure to know about your condition. I don’t know whether that is as big a deal as you make out but just remember that there could be other complications which you don’t know about and which it might be good to pick up on.

NI doesn't pay for the NHS. It's not really a hypothecated tax these days. The baulk of health spending comes from general taxation.

Wow - I loved my midwife appointments, a chance to ask questions, discuss odd symptoms etc and hear the baby heart rate. I get there are things you can do at home, I did that as well, but I’d much prefer a professional keep and eye on me and baby. You can’t measure the bump growth in the way they can for a start.

Also, as in another post - it’s all ok until it isn’t and then you’ll be glad you have the support of a midwife. Be thankful you’re not a high risk pregnancy - then you’re there pretty much every week!

I know it's unbelievable what I read on here.
The amount of developmental learning I've done over 30 yrs is a LOT more than attending a lecture years ago and reading from NHS websites.

It's years of experience or when your gut tells you something isn't quite right. The OP thinks it's all useless though.

As for the safeguarding she has no clue what this involves, the amount of people it can involve and how lives are saved by vigilant safeguarding.