Unbelievable! In labour midwife tells husband to leave 'visiting hours are over'

dd1 was born at 4:30 am after a night of labour and three days of prostaglandin induction with no sleep. Afterwards I had a serious pph and ended up spending most of the day in the high dependency unit, eventually being moved to the postnatal ward late afternoon, hooked up to various bits (catheter bag, IV with wheeley stand etc) and feeling very ropey - well, at 8pm they chucked my dh out (at this point dd1 had started a screaming marathon). When I asked how on earth I was supposed to be able to cope with handling the baby etc (seeing I could barely get out of bed) I got a very snotty reply of 'You'll just have to learn! Your husband won't be there for you all the time.'
It all got very desperate and when I was trying to get the catheter out myself so that I could go home at about 11pm they agreed to let dh come in and stay in the TV lounge - where we all spent dd's first night, sleeping on chairs (well, dd sleeping on dh's chest ).
Second labour was a home birth - not without it's excitement but infinitely better.

i also had the midwife from hell,i went into labour 7 weeks early they tried to stop it but 2 days later the contractions started again it was night time so they put me in the delivery room,attached to the monitor with the lights off and no bell to call for help,when the pain was really bad i started shouting,it was my first baby and i was terrified after a long time calling for help this midwife came and started shouting in my face to shut up!!!she then came back and without a word gave me pethidine and left me there in the dark again,the labour was horrid and the whole 10 days in hospital a nightmare,cried non stop and even thought about jumping out of one of the windows but no one offered me any support or even a kind word,i didn't sleep in the whole time also i had to take ds upstairs at midnight for his antibiotics,one day i asked the midwife to wake me up before midnight as i was exhausted and she said it was my responsability to stay awake and take him upstairs and they knew i couldn't sleep at all but no,they were not going to go out of their way to wake me up,i did complaint but nothing was done about it

I buzzed for help feeding 8hour old ds at 10a.m.
and orderly told me she'd get someone. So we waited, and waited, and waited. Ds was quite content to sleep it all off.

At 8pm dp & I decided to just leave - they obviously didn't feel we needed any attention. At that point we finally got attention - and were told we couldn't go home cos the baby hadn't fed at three hour intervals through the day!

Shame, cos our experience of delivery was great, just what came after was rubbish. I agree, we should all complain. But I gave in to that new baby warzone and didn't.

I wish more women WOULD complain.... very few do and some really have good grounds for it....
A colleague of mine recently accompanied a woman into labour... she wanted a VBAC and went into spontaneous labour at 43 weeks (yes not that the hospital approved of this but she did not want an induction), when she went in she wasn't dilated (though contracting) so the Dr got very mad and told her off... and said "off you go in theater...." he was so mad that while stitching her up he said : "and next time you wil have section at 37 weeks"..

WHAT A BULLY...... he could have made his point in a MUCH better manner and maybe the mum would be more receptive... as it turns out she will write to complain and she is even more determined to have a VBAC now !

i had a really good chat with my community midwife later and she encouraged me to feedback to the hospital (we were given a feedback form when we left), and even though i was in the middle of the war zone that is a newborn's arrival I did it and felt much much better. It helped that it was anonymous.

if you can, do it. It's important that they know what impact they have on people - I know we are all hormonal at that time, but it's soooo special and it's such a shame when it gets marred by a thoughtless or 'jobsworth' midwife.

i had an audience of whole night shift durind 2nd phase and they were eating sandwiches. nurse were coming at 5 am to check my temp and at 6 to take my blood and at 7 for general check up

I had a similar problem,lalaa. Terrible troubles getting ds to feed. I was using the 'milking machine' as it had been suggested that I expressed a bit first. She came in and said that I wouldn't get far doing that and I was using the machine too much. Also one time woke me up to ask if I had fed ds - I had!

oh yes and I'm sure you'll get lots of responses to this one.....
I was having a total nightmare feeding my dd on night 2. the mw who came to 'help' me, picked up my babe, declared that she was obviously hungry in a v. disapproving way and gave her back - no help or anything! it was about 3 in the morning and I was in a total state. I'll never forget that one.
your does sound like a particularly nasty one though....

My midwife came round to see me and said so sorry youve lost the baby when i hadnt! Thats terrible Jzee!