To think a lot of midwives are.. just not very good?

If, after reading 11 pages of women's experiences the only person you can think of is yourself then I don't belive you do centre women in your work. Are you not horrified at the stories shared? Do you not think that women should be able to discuss this and expect better? Why should we be silenced to avoid hurting the feelings of midwives?

Hi midwife here.

i can assure you we are not all the same bit I know where you are coming from. Please be assured the majority of us really do care. I’m sorry you have been so unfortunately with yours and it’s completely unacceptable. X

Labour 1- I was in labour from Wednesday 5am to Friday lunchtime. I entered motherhood exhausted. Was never offered a c section, just drugs to strengthen the contractions. I got pnd and the HV was no help whatsoever, despite crying repeatedly when she visited.
Labour 2- I was induced. I could feel the baby's head between my legs, dangling like a coconut and I was in a shitload of pain, but I wasn't believed that I was in labour. Almost had him on the ward. Made it to labour suite, gave birth 20 mins later. Midwife seemed nice, but she gave me diamorphine before checking how dilated I was, so I was high as a kite in my newborn baby photos, and completely naked, and she didn't think to cover me up..so I couldn't show anyone those photos, lol.
Labour 3-When I complained of being in pain, the midwife said, what do you expect, you're in labour.
Labour 4- Laboured on my own on the ward all night. Wasn't believed about the pain. Was told they would come back and check on me, they didn't. They weren't busy, they were all gossiping in the nurses station. I got two cocodamol at 2am and that was all the pain relief. I pushed him out myself on the bed, lying on my side, whilst 4 midwifes scurried around all excited like this was all unexpected. I was left in the bloody, messy sheets for 2 hours afterwards, the window beside me was left open which lowered my baby's temperature dangerously and the showers on the ward were broken that day too. I wasn't offered tea or toast. It was a really crap, traumatic experience. I felt like the midwifes didn't give a shit.
TLDR If you are stoical when in pain, make sure you have someone to advocate for you.

YANBU. Sadly one of my birth experiences was like this. Mostly the two of them sitting around chatting and drinking tea in the corridor. Not very helpful at all and did very little. I was even refused a fan even though it was hot in case it ‘hurt the baby’ ffs.

But have you not read some of the truly awful stories on here? Some have moved me to tears.
I'm a mental health nurse of 30 + years and have read many stories of poor care within mental health care, I don't feel personally got at, it makes me more determined to try and be part of improving care for patients.
All of us in the NHS have witnessed shitty attitudes and poor care from colleague's or been unfortunate to be on the receiving end.

The answer isn't to stop people from speaking about their experiences, some of the stories here are shocking.

This is exactly why I had independent midwives. I had a home birth with community midwives first time around and they were contradictory and obstructive. It’s only because my amazing Go actually backed me and was at my birth (Christmas Eve morning and she came for the last four hours of my labour - hard to imagine that now. Thanks to her and also a straightforward labour it was ok. I booked independent midwives for two subsequent births. Only went into hospital for two scans all the rest of the care at home at my convenience with the same two women. Absolutely the best money I ever spent and cost less than many people’s annual holidays.

We don’t need obstetricians at every appointment. That’s not what this is about at all.

I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I think being a doctor is a calling, as is a nurse or other caring role. It doesn’t mean society has a right to exploit such people but it does imply that they chose to do their job for other reasons than practical, economic ones. These jobs do require people to give more than say, an insurance salesperson or an accountant and if you haven’t got the humanity and compassion for them there are other branches of medicine which are more suitable (research, pathology, some surgery).

I visited a consultant dermatologist once whose face was absolutely pitted with deep acne scars. He didn’t explicitly say it but I’m sure he’d chosen his field as a result of personal experience and the wish to help others.

A bit of a generalisation however, this country cannot afford obstetricians for every check up and births. It would cost more than the NHS can afford. In every job there will be some people very good at their jobs and others that aren’t. Sorry you had a bad experience. Just pay for the service/care you want next time. It’s what we did a London maternity hospital.

I'd say people are talking about their experiences, not slagging midwives off. If you're one of the good ones, as many of us have also acknowledged there are, then there's no need feeling personally attacked.

I respect great medical professionals so much. What they do is one of the genuinely essential jobs in the world and in service to humanity. This is why I can't abide the horrible ones - they're in the wrong job or doing it for the wrong reasons.

I labour silently, as in not a peep, anyway went into hospital having reported contractions and my waters going. The midwife looked at me and without doing any obs or listening in or putting her hand on my uterus, absolutely nothing, she asked 'are you even in labour?' My reply 'the head is coming out'. Less than 30 seconds later the baby was born with me standing by the bed. Luckily she did catch my lo but with no gloves on mind!
There's so much I could say on this thread but it would be too revealing. So I will leave it here. But yanbu OP.

I hate the way unacceptable care has been so normalised.

Having to labour on an open ward with just a curtain around you after being induced, guidelines getting more and more strict about everything so women think they’re incapable of of growing, giving birth and feeding their babies themselves. I do feel for the midwives as well because the whole system is unsustainable now, they’re trying to standardise something that can’t be standardised, and both patient and midwife job satisfaction is at an all time low.

And I have seen (luckily rarely!) my medic colleagues being rude to patients.

That's true I guess. You get good and bad in all professions.

That's true I guess. You get good and bad in all professions.

I believe I was left with PTSD after my first birth experience because of a midwife. At one point I asked for a bedpan as I needed to poo. She scoffed at me and told me it was pressure against my rectum. It went on and on and I KNEW I was going to poo on the bed and I DID. Someone asked what the stink was and Frosty Knickers looked down and said “oh for God’s sake now we have to change the bed” and then actually smacked me on the thigh like a naughty child!!!!!!! She was really rough in cleaning me up and moaned about it the whole time. I wanted to die with mortification and the young doctor squeezed my hand in sympathy. No surprised that I then needed forceps for delivery and had severe depression

I’m so sorry. When I was a midwife I gave 100% to the women in my care. I delivered hundreds of babies, some were named after me and some were named after my daughter. I delivered my two sisters babies too because. I didn’t want them to be on the receiving end of some of the midwives I unfortunately worked alongside. There were some fabulous midwives but they were few and far between. A cluster of midwives were just downright nasty (I was bullied by them myself for a period of time) they would bully junior midwives who, in turn and in fear of reprisals, ended up being nasty themselves. The environment was toxic.

Got to say I agree with you completely OP. When I had my son it was a total shit show. 2 midwives bickering over my bed about the right/wrong way to do something relating to my care. Zero communication when I had to have an emergency instrumental delivery. Left stuck in my blood soaked nightie (literally from the armpits down my white nightie was deep red) for hours until the lovely student midwife got me showered. Midwives singing at the top of their lungs at the nurses station right outside my room during the night. My milk didn't come in but all my notes say "breast feeding well". Community midwife who forgot to come and turns out my stitches had came away and I had an infection resulting in readmission then to be told id hady baby so needed to contact my GP in future. I could go on but you get the picture. Very much doubt I'll be having a second!

Thank you for your honesty, I had to have therapy after the horrendous way I was treated, I had deep depression, nightmares and flashbacks and the worst thing is my experience is not that unsual. My midwife actually mocked me when I was in labour, took the piss out of me when I was doing my breathing ( I would have lost my mind without doing breathing exercises, of course it does not stop the pain but it kept me relatively calm) she called me "silly and stupid" "not normal" and she seemed to actively enjoy my fear and panic. Very odd woman. Many years later I was on a gyne ward and got chatting to a woman in the next bed and talk turned to chlldbirth and she had had the same midwife and had been treated horrifically and like me, had never had another child.

One of my family members is a nurse and she always found midwives "odd" (not all of them of course) and genereally unkind and lacking in compassion. She always said the first duty of any HCP or nurse is kindess and if you can't be kind then don't do the job

First midwife during the birth of my daughter was terrible! Similar experience as you, not listened to, made to feel silly for saying I needed to push, I ended up pushing on my own until an anaesthetist visited after I requested an epidural and got a doctor in. She hadn’t examined me in a couple of hours and told the doctor I just needed a p**. The doctor soon realised it was my baby but by then she was nearly out and I had a very very bad tear (4th degree) and ended up in surgery for two hours to be stitched up!

second experience I had a planned c-section and the experience was a lot more pleasant!

The midwives throughout both pregnancies were good though but labour midwife left me with a lot of trauma.

I e seen doctors roll their eyes at patients more than once including my daughter. I could tell stories all day long of totally useless doctors. I guess like all professions some are fucking useless, some are excellent, some are noticeably good, some are good but overworked and can’t provide the care they’d like, some don’t follow guidelines, don’t listen to patients, fob them off.

Well of course it is but if someone was in lots of pain and asking for help, I personally wouldn’t respond with “well it’s painful so..”
just feels an extremely unhelpful and stupid thing to say.
surely a normal, kind person would say “yes I know it is. Have you tried this? Could we do this? You’re doing really well”

I agree with one or two aspects.

But you need to define vocation. It's only ever traditionally women's roles (or religious) that have been deemed "a vocation ", ie nurses and midwives. Oh yes, and traditionally underpaid.

Never heard a gastroenterologist requirement being a "vocation ".