Please tell us your thoughts on midwives for an upcoming meeting with the RCM

My antenatal care for both pg's was the same Com MW who was fab - yet forgot my name 2 weeks later - hey ho!

It was seeing the multitude of MW's after that that was the problem! My first child was born ELCS (enforced NOT Elected) and the MW who was there for delivery was fab! I had to stay in hospital for 5 days though and the post op care was pretty crap - I had to shriek to have my choking baby brought to me (2-12hrs post op), my blood stained sheets were not changed until day 4, I was constantly told to walk to cupboards with sheets in to rectify this despite having a catheter in. My cathether was left to burst 3 times and then I was left to overflow and wet the bed 4 times. I was left without a pad 3 times. I was not given the usual 24hr pain relief post epidural as was wrongly diagnosed as having high blood pressure 10 wks before birth so had to cope on paracetamol post epidural. was used as a stat as I breastfed easily and had several people come round and literally pinch my nipples in front of students without prior warning! For Child 2, I had a 4.5 hrs VBAC labour and despite it being fab at the time (ie I wanted hands off care) - they did not care and weren't around. I was in a high dependancy room next to theatre but I delivered my child on my own. The MW asked a student if she was happy to deliver and do the checks and she said no so they both left the room and I delivered my son with myself and my husband present. She attended several minutes later and made out as if she was there all along to the consultant who came to stitch me!

Hate the terminoligy too 2ChildrenplusLA

Thread dead?
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Sorry PW.

\but surely you should be able to have a team and set the expectations? Even just telling a mother it's unlikely you'll be at the birth, but giving her a leaflet with photos of the team so she at least recognises who is? And why not have booked holiday - people get that you have to take holidays - as long as the reason you're not booking off is insufficiency of cover...

I have had five kids. The midwives were amazing lovely women who got me through 3 natural births and two sections. They were angels every one. I realise I am lucky to be able to say this. The hospital was the Causeway Hosp, Coleraine Northern Ireland

The only teams I have seen have eventually folded. That is not to say there are not succesfull ones out there, I only speak from experience. Limited at that. I know there are teams working well right now.

Main reasons I have seen for failure, imo, have been the cost of providing staff flexibility. If one midwife has to go out at 4am and labour till noon, then another has to cover her clinic. That other has to be a real person, who is paid, exists, and is able to drop whatever they were being paid to do - and tere is the struggle. The total unpredictability of nature.

The other is the burn out rates of the midwives. Really rewarding, but totally exhausting. It really is full pelt working patterns.
Also significantly encroaches on ability to say - book a hotel for a wedding. Can't do it, don't know who might need a call out/cover, can't rsvp = can't go. Same for sports days/parents evenings and so on. People strugle to justify the lifestyle choice it demands to their families.

It sounds like whinging, and it is. Why should I have a God given right to attend a nativity? Yet the constant friction between teh two worlds just wears you down.

All this does not and should not concern the people waiting in the anc, but it is the gritty side of my working life. Nor does it it in anyway excuse lack of care in any scenario.

treedelivery, no I think your views ARE wanted.

It must be incredibly difficult to manage the expectations of women and employers and provide the kind of service you would wish to yourself. I can only guess how demoralising it must be to want to do more but not be able to.

What is the answer, in your view? Could the single team approach work, so with the right number of midwives working together, some kind of continuity could be offered between a small group?

Or is there another solution?

But treedelivery - I've read your posts before and I would have killed to have a MW like you at any stage...!

ooh yes the bishopston team in bristol are lovely......
but... when i had ds they also delivered in hospital too (anyone frome thier area)....now (28wks with no2) they don't and I will have some random stranger. Realise this is so the norm and that i was "lucky" the first time around but feel it should be that way

Apologies for several typos and errors, I know MN is after me . Gulity as charged on the 2 counts of being a) a midwife who works in hospital on shifts, and b) unable to master the language.

Am sure the views of a mw are not wanted, as idea here is to present views of the user group. I have been a user twice so perhaps can have a [small] voice.

I personally cannot offer continuity of care throughout the 3 stages of pregnancy. I cannot go oncall for labour as I can't leave the house in the middle of the night, unsure when I will return. It just isn't feasable with children. Ditti bfing call out's and so on. It is so so sad, and I feel awful about it.
I have had to face up to that failing in my practice, and except that I work at a sub standard level.

The only plus side, reading some of the encounters here, is continuity always that good a thing? Continuity with some of the people detailed here may well have been torture.

GirlyLala - you reminded me - the MW who kept trying to open my curtains while I was trying to master BFing (because they should only be drawn if you're expressing) because the fuckwit design of the ward meant that windows opened into cubicles, and the central bit had no natural light. FFS.

This was cathartic but it's mostly just depressing.

Nancydrewrocks - Can't believe she said that to you . That's awful.

All I really wanted was a midwife who actually gave a toss about me.

You may pick from:

Community midwife: who told me (third pregnancy, two previous miscarriages), that there was no point having a scan as I was probably going to loose the baby anyway when I was bleeding. Cheers love, I knew that it wouldn't make a difference, but I didn't want to wait weeks to find out.

Community midwife: (fourth pregnancy after 3 miscarriages, including one very missed and one missed) Stop being so silly, you need to start enjoying this pg, nothing will go wrong.

Hospital MW: (admitted at 35 weeks when waters went - I said I might be having cx, so when did I need to tell them, esp as baby hadn't engaged, so risk of cord prolapse) 'When you feel like pushing, ha ha. No one even checked on me, so was found vomiting on my own and 6cm dilated.

The 5 different midwives who wandered in and out during my labour.

The ones who left me covered in blood, having lost a litre of blood with my baby whisked off to SCBU, without anything to eat, drink, help to wash etc.

The ones who wouldn't take me to see my baby.

Who in 5 days on the PN ward (whilst my baby was in SCBU) didn't actually examine me once, and left me with a blood stained bed.

Who refused to arrange medically necessary meals for me.

Who left me on a ward with 5 women and their babies, and didn't even ask about mine

Who made up their entries in my notes - the inaccuracy included a statement that my baby had come to PN and then gone to SCBU, when he didn't at any point.

And the community midwife who didn't see me for 3 days when we had been sent home from SCBU, and DS had only been directly feeding without an NG tube for 24 hours

So, um, not a terribly positive experience for me

Are you a midwife treedelivery?

See, this thread is upsetting me now, even though I was very direct in my criticism.

Because midwives can't win. Like social workers, damned if they do intervene, damned if they don't. And squeezed by penny-pinching employers.

It is such a responsibility, a life and death one, and of course death is now rare but MWs still have to face real complications and deal with them calmly and appropriately. I couldn't do that. And I'd hate to think that women in my care held me responsible for every tiny thing that goes wrong because some of it is just gonna go wrong.

So how to separate out the bits that are the responsibility of the institution and which can be dealt with?

What are the right working practices for women who (often? mostly?) have children themselves? Dedicated teams have to be the only way? The Sheffield case study sounds interesting - would like to hear more about that.

RCM - Midwives need help to do their job from their employer, the NHS. You as the union need to become active in helping midwives fall back in love with the job.

The hours are as far from family friendly as it is possible to be, and I believe this inpacts on how midwives function. I hear the call for continuity of care loud and clear, yet also feel that the total lack of work/life balance is pushing midwives to the edge and right over.

You as the union have focused on the huge all consuming massive commitments of negotiating agenda for change and other reform.
When you were doing this, you also allowed the employer to significantly infringe on and re-mould working practice, to their own financial gain. This has been a poor show, the complete witdrawal if interest in the working lives and daily experiences of midwives.

It's effect has been the disenfranchisement of the women who are midwives, and the women who need midwives. On your watch.

To my primary midwie I saw throughout my pregnancy - rib pain isn't always indigestion, thanks for missing the HELLP syndrome, I was nearly not here to tell the tale. If a pregnant woman tells you she really doesn't feel well and that indigestion is REALLY BAD there might be a reason.

To the midwives in hospital - Thanks for doing everything right and saving my baby's and my life.

"I do not trust you because of the awful mess midwives made of my care during my first birth. I will not try a VBAC because I do not trust for one second that any of you can take good enough care of me to get me and DD out the other end of it in one, healthy piece. How on earth can it be too early for a TENS machine, why couldn't one of you help me to run a bath while on the ward rather than drinking tea and chatting and in what universe was leaving my DS in distress for 36 hours before calling a consultant deemed to be a good idea? Now I'm scared of giving birth and unable to even trust in my own body - well done"

Another vote for continuity of care.

My first midwife couldn't answer ANY of my questions; she would shrug her shoulders, make a face, and say she would find out but never did.

Then I think I never saw the same mw twice ante-natally. I saw 2 peri-natally (but I'd travelled 150 miles to ensure that I didn't give birth in my local hospital!) - they were both great, and the first came in to see me the next morning too, which really touched me.

Post-natally, back at home, I was subjected to at least 3 or 4 different ones, including the very first ante-natal one, who still couldn't answer any questions, and pushed me into bottle feeding. She was a particularly helpless sort of woman and utterly useless. I still despise her!

My midwives for both births were amazing. DS was a long labour with several midwives over the course of my labour but they were kind and supportive. Postnatal was woeful - trying my hardest to breastfeed my newborn on his first night who failed to latch on (although had been helped to latch earlier in the day) - I would like to say to the midwife who said 'i'm too busy to help so I'll get you some formula' that I wish she'd spent some time helping me and not left me on my own not knowing how to help my baby feed. As it was I ended up giving him the bottle she bought and then spent a miserable six weeks expressing milk before I finally successfully got him to latch on again and start breastfeeding.
To DD's midwife who listened throughout I would say thankyou for a wonderful birth in the MLU where you helped me latch DD on immediately and then left us for an hour to feed as I'd asked for in my birth plan. 12 months on I have wonderful memories of my day and feeding is still going strong. Thanks for understanding and listening to me.

To the midwife who said to me (after 3hrs 10 mins of pushing) "Do you want your baby to die inside of you". You are a fucking disgrace to your profession - and I wish I'd had the wherewithall to say that to you at the time.

Please do something about post-natal care on the ward.

I dont want to feel like I am an inconvinience. It was not my fault I had a c section and could not move to pick up my boy in the night.

Please dont tell me on the ward the curtain must stay open all the time for health and safety reasons. Please dont tell people off for bringing gifts. Please dont tut when I ask if I can go home. Please dont roll your eyes when i asked if I could have my sheet changed because there was blood over it.

Pleas, I know your overworked but being a bit nicer would have made the whole thing a bit easier for me.

Picante - I've had a lot more than a days worth of breastfeeding information.

I have another one for the RCM -

please please stop refering to 'Delivery'

Parcels and letters are delivered. Babies are born. Postmen deliver - midwives assist and facilitate in birth.

Also - Did I mention -

SAVE THE ALBANY!

Sorry if it's been mentioned before:

Please please please can midwives have more breastfeeding training? I've heard they only have a day or so during their entire training.

And connected to this, please can they not tell first time mums that their baby needs a bottle on their first night in the world!

i don't think it would hurt to run through a tick sheet pre-birth which i sign to show i have been informed

1)of the bens of BF
2)of the potential for difficulty
3)what number to call if i have a question
4)the how of BF and what demand feeding means (ie not waiting for them to yell..)

etc etc

and then goes in my notes for ref...

talk to me about Breastfeeding before i give birth. and know something about it.