I'm a midwife, ask me anything

[MidwifeAMA]

Midwife of 20 years, currently specialising in home birth.
Ask me anything :)

I had two failed epidurals with my first and only baby (4 weeks old).

It numbed me up to my knees, then the second one was up to my mid thigh area.

What's the likelihood this would happen again if I were to have a second?

Ps, thanks for all the work you do for us and our babies ♥️

Are most (Caucasian?) babies really born with blue eyes?

Ds was but Dd was born with black looking eyes - you couldn't see the pupil. The midwife went on and on about it being unusual for 2 white parents (dh and I white) and it felt a little bit accusatory tbh! But that might've been the hormones!

Not got a question but just wanted to say thank you for your work and your support for women. I had a wonderful home birth with my first baby a few months ago, it was the most empowering and wonderful experience. I felt so supported and empowered by the wonderful homebirth team who knew the power of women’s bodies and how to give them the support and care to listen to their own bodies and bring their babies into the world. Despite a very very long back to back labour, I never felt rushed or pressured, and strongly believe that the calmness of the midwives and trust they had in my body gave me the safe space to have a wonderful peaceful, intervention and medication free (by accident - I just felt so safe and okay that I never felt I needed gas and air or anything!) homebirth. I’ll be forever grateful for that and wish more women were able to experience it, although of course I appreciate there are instances when women need or prefer to be in hospital and approach things differently.

The women-centric approach of the homebirth midwives was in stark contrast to some of the coercive ‘care’ from obstetricians unfortunately! But thank you for supporting women’s choices and enabling homebirths.

When I had my first baby it was quite an arduous labour, 3 days of induction, waters broken, long day of labour, failed epidural, both developed an infection etc. A doctor helped me deliver (ventuse? Sorry can't spell it!) Whilst I pushed. She cut me with the surgical implement (scissors?), I'm assuming so I wouldn't tear. But she didn't say anything to me. She just did it. It still really gets to me 5 years later. I understand she wanted to help deliver my baby safely but she could have said something to me. I can still hear the sound. Was that wrong of her? I just feel so betrayed by it, I wish she'd have explained it to me even briefly, not just gone in and cut me without warning.

Can midwives ever give epidurals and if not why not? And would you like to be able to?

Why do midwives dislike neonatal nurses so much 👀😁

My two standalone MLU births (not to mention the after care support) were so much better than my first labour ward birth which was followed by five days of (to put it mildly) variable post natal care as baby’s blood sugars were low. I remember when my second was about 12 hours old crying because I realised how badly I had been treated first time round.

now the trust no longer has enough midwifes to use the standalone MLU for births. How can we support midwifery?

Lovely thread. My daughter is due to give birth in two weeks and has asked if I would like to be there ( her partner so presume some kind of tag team and fully expect it to be her partner at the actual event). Any advice on how to support her? And not get in the way of midwife’s as well.

What's the heaviest baby you've ever delivered?

And have you ever had to ask a birth partner to leave because they were being unhelpful?

I had a non reassuring CTG for HOURS after being in a car crash. Was induced and got to 2cms in 8 hrs. Emergency C-section baby’s heart rate dropped to 45 and didn’t come back quickly and was it mirroring a contraction. APGAR 2, resuscitated. Why on Earth was I induced? And why didn’t they intervene more quickly?

I’m 24 weeks pregnant with baby number 2. I had a bad birth with my first. I had meptid due to no relief from contractions and I was in constant intense pain, I’m going to decline meptid this time of offered it. I became quite unwell where my heart rate dropped to 38, BP was in my boots and my temp was very low. I have never felt so unwell in all my life, I was terrified. I stayed at 9cm for hours due to a lip on my cervix which a dr had to do something to with his hand, and then had an episiotomy.

I’m so worried about the lip - will this happen again? And because I had an episiotomy last time does that increase the risk of tearing? Im very very nervous this time around.

my midwife was absolutely incredible but the doctor in charge of my care wasn’t great. She was quite rude at times and I didn’t feel very comfortable with her.

No thanks to that, I'd never want an epidural from a midwife!

OP how would you support a woman who had chosen to formula feed from the outset? Many midwifes seem incapable of showing any compassion or support and in fact make the woman fell awful about this; no doubt a contributing factor to struggling in those early days.

Please could you explain to me a few things about my first pregnancy and birth?

During pregnancy from about 25 weeks or so onwards, I would sometimes get sharp pains in my whole bump area. These pains got stronger and longer over the weeks and would happen more often if I was standing up or walking. Whenever I had checkups though, nothing seemed amiss on the tests so this went unresolved. I thought maybe these were braxton hicks but after having been through real labour, I realised that labour pains were not sharp like those ones I had during pregnancy. The pains did not hold for 30 secs (etc) then go either, they would just stay for minutes at a time.

When I was 32 weeks I had a strange experience when I got cramping pain that lasted about 40 secs/1 min, every 10 min, then this increased to every 7 then 5 mins. I called my hospital and we all thought it seems like I was in labour but when they put me on the monitors, contractions had got to every 2 mins but it showed that the contractions weren't anywhere near strong enough for this to be real labour. However the contractions weren't stopping on their own so they gave me pills to help stop the contractions and asked me to come in the next day for a check up.
Everything had seemed to be resolved and then they all were dismissive of me, saying well it's your first time so that's why you didn't realise that wasn't real labour. But the monitor had shown I was not making it up, the contractions were coming regularly as if it was real labour. I knew I wasn't in loads of pain but with these timings, what was I supposed to think? Do you understand what this all was about?

Later at full term, labour was awful, 39 hours in induced labour and by the time they said 'pant don't push', I was beyond all instruction and just kept pushing as hard as I could. The doctor announced he was going to make a cut (episiotomy) and I said fine as I was past caring.
It took me about a year to heal completely and because episiotomies are somewhat controversial, I wondered if this was the best option for me. Do you think I would have torn very badly/had a worse result if they hadn't done the episiotomy? I was told by a midwife there while I was still pregnant that they don't do routine episiotomies at that place.

After my baby was born, I think I went into shock. I shook intensely and uncontrollably and tried to get off the bed when they were doing my stitches. I couldn't breathe properly and kept saying 'baby'. (My baby was fine). They put a small towel on my face and told me not to move when the stitches were being done. I pushed the towel off of my face and they put it back on, I just turned my face to the side and left it there for a bit as I was physically weak and gradually I calmed myself down.
When I've told other people about this part, they seemed shocked, but everyone in the delivery room seemed fine about it. They weren't trying to smother me or anything, I think the towel was meant to distract me or something. I don't know though. What do you think?

Thank you so much for making this thread, I've been learning from what you and others have posted.

It’s usually relayed to a malposition, so your body is working really hard to push your baby into the right spot but none meets none where it’s not lined up well and you get a disproportionate amount of pain for the stage of labour. Pain relief, water, massage, tens, biomechanics all useful for this, plus reassuring that although the cervix number is small it’s not all a numbers game and your body is doing what it needs to do,

Probably mid forties, quite common as your body throws out a few eggs pre menopause, but we had a woman of 62 not so long ago with an ivf baby conceived abroad.

We absolutely couldn’t give a shit about your pubes or your fake tan. We don’t gossip about pubes. We gossip about management like everyone else. 😆

Usually the induction continues for as long as reasonable progress is made (at least 1/2 cm cervical dilation an hour) and everyone is coping well. Brow presentation isn’t always easy to spot until the cervix is open enough to really feel the babies head well, it’s pretty rare too.
the risk of infection after waters break for 24hr increases but only be tiny amount, it’s not some huge leap like sometimes lead to believe. More of a problem is endless vaginal examination for someone who has waters broken as it’s a risk for infection if there’s loads of examinations (and also questionable how much use they are)

What's your view on vba2c?

My first was a cat 1 emcs at 10cm, dd was transverse and I was made to push her, despite doctors knowing she was transverse. Massive PPH and transfusion.

My second was another emcs. I went into labour and got to 9cm extremely quickly. Doctors said I could push and baby would come shooting out, but I bottled it (due to fear from first birth) and requested an emcs again.

I trained in the uk and direct to midwifery. you can’t tell who is nurse trained and who isn’t in general, unless an unusual nurse type question comes up and someone might say ‘oh I remember this from working on x ward’.
I don’t think either is better than the other.

very little training on those things as they arent really part of the everyday role of the midwife. Miscarriage and fertility are specialist gynae roles. Trisomy and TFMR are specialist fetal medicine roles.

It’s unusual.
most also a bit more unusual to have an epidural with a second baby as they usually come quickly, but the option is still if you have time.

I think they are but babies eyes are so hard to see the colour, and there’s so much genetic possibilities that every baby is different

Home birth offers so much, it can be really life affirming to feel so safe and empowered in birth. Lovely to hear what a great experience you had.

You absolutely always should be asked and give consent before this happens. I would write to the hospital and complain. No consent=assault! I’m sorry this happened to you

It’s a very specialist anaesthetist job and not something we are or ever will be trained to do. I’m happy not to be able to do it as it would take focus off my role. I have plenty of comfort options in my midwife tool kit.

I once had a neonatal nurse tell me the birth unit was dangerous and all births should be on delivery suite. Absolute nonsense. That’s the only neonatal nurse I’ve ever disliked.
theres no negativity between the two at my hospital.