Midwife AMA

[MidwifeMidwife]

I'm a midwife with 20 years experience.
I currently provide NHS home birth care.

AMA

I always wanted a home birth but ended up opting for ELCS first time round... would a home birth ever be an option for DC2 given Im overweight and 40 now? 🙈

What are the red flags immediately following birth, not holding baby 24/7, having a shower & leaving baby alone ten mins? Is there follow up? Psychiatric intervention?

During my second birth I had back to back contractions (after the midwife broke my waters). It was awful like a rollercoaster I couldn't get off, no break in between.

I screamed. A lot.

I felt like my midwife got annoyed at me, like I was giving her a headache - she kept telling me to stop screaming.

Do you ever get annoyed at women for making too much noise? I wish I'd been given a pillow to scream in to.

It was probably just bad luck, but it's really difficult to say whether had things happened naturally whether that would've still happened. It sounds like you responded really quickly to the induction drugs and laboured possibly quicker than average if you got regular contractions and then had a baby within a few hours. It could be that had you laboured spontaneously you would've laboured in a slower more steady way which can sometimes affect the way your body stretches as your baby is born however in a lot of these cases it's just impossible to know what the flipside of the coin would've been. it would be interesting to see why you were induced because an IVF pregnancy alone isn't a reason to induce someone's labour and I think when there's been an outcome that's not been desirable it's worth looking back right to the beginning and saying did we start something that could have contributed to this outcome? And do we have a really good reason for why we started that process?

It's really good to hear that your second birth experience was healing and positive.

As a midwife, I haven't experienced it directly at the time of birth.

I have looked after a lady in pregnancy who was a surrogate and it was quite straightforward for everybody involved. They were very matter-of-fact about it. There didn't seem to be a lot of high emotions about it.

Personally, as a feminist I find surrogacy quite challenging in some circumstances.

In your opinion, what percentage of births would go absolutely fine with no danger to Mum or baby if they were alone without any medical help at all, maybe just a friend or partner - say, cut of in a snow storm or whatever,

Is there anything that can be done to prevent morning sickness and vomiting during labour?

honestly terrified of it

’Home birth is safe for most women’ ?? I’m afraid your advice is unprofessional and dangerous.
I had a ‘normal’ pregnancy and went to hospital once in labour. It lasted 36hrs and my daughter was finally delivered with Neville Barnes forceps. It was hell.
Four years later when I plucked up the courage to have a 2nd child she was luckily breach which meant they needed to X-ray my pelvis to see if she could be delivered vaginally. They discovered my pelvis was extremely flat ( no room for babies head to rotate properly, which explained 1st baby problems) so she was born via CS. Thank God, great experience.
Unless the NHS are going to start routinely checking for pelvis abnormalities people like me will always be safer delivering in hospital.

@stonedaisy my youngest, now 26, has a sacral dimple to one side of his spine. I can't remember which side! It hasn't affected him in any way.

He was actually my baby who was born at home. I had a wonderful planned homebirth with two fantastic midwives. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

How often is the father of the baby NOT present for a birth?

Whether that’d because they are not involved, they are involved but chose a different birthing partner or because they just happened to miss it.

Do you think it’s essential? I find it fascinating that decades ago men weren’t ‘allowed’ to be in the room but we’ve done a full flip to women feeling like they HAVE to have their baby’s father present

What's the longest you've had to wait for an ambulance when you've needed an emergency transfer to hospital?

Do you agree with the eroding of the words like 'mother' 'breast feeding' 'woman' to placate the trans ideology ??

Have you listened to the midwives cauldron podcast? I bloody loved it. Made my 3rd pregnancy and birth so much less traumatic as felt so much more informed

I don't think that matters these days.
El Popo is more motivated by numbers these days.

And those whimple thingies address those 'bad hair days' in the wink of an eye.

What do you think of FSEs? Are they really necessary do you think? Currently 34w and I hate the idea of them, they seem barbaric!

I don’t have anything to ask but I just wanted to say thank you.

I think it’s such a challenging job but it’s one of the most important and as women we need women supporting us through one of the most difficult and emotional experiences in our lives.

I absolutely hated giving birth and had no one to accompany me. I was 18 and very scared.
I am so thankful to the women who helped me through it. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without them.

Given you have been a midwife for 20years, I assume you are an 'old fashioned' midwife with nursing training?
how do you feel about the changes to midwifery training - specifically the fact that there is no nurse training - leaving staff ill equipped to deal with complex patients?

Thanks for answering. And thank you for all that you do, it must be a tough job!

Thanks for your reply. This almost happened to me with my first who was back to back and had been a long slow labour. I’d pushed for 2 hours and they could see her head but I could t push her out. They took me to theatre to try forceps of a section of that failed. Forceps failed but when they did the section they really struggled to free her. As they put a crash call out they managed to pull her free. I always think about what the next step would have been
it was the most traumatic thing I’ve ever been through

Are birth debriefs pointless if 20 months has passed, or is there value at any time

My placenta disintegrated. Any ideas what could have caused this?

I had a homebirth, very quick - a bit of cramping (which turned out to be contractions), waters broke then active labour for an hour and a half. Midwife almost didn't make it in time and the second one didn't make it until after the birth. I had a third degree tear so had to go in to hospital anyway and during my check up afterwards the consultant advised to have a C-Section if I had any more to avoid further damage.

My question is, given I had such a quick labour, is it likely to be even quicker next time if I went into labour spontaneously? I'm not pregnant, just curious in case I decide to have another in the future..

My 26yr old son has one. I'd not met anyone with one either.

How common is shoulder dystocia in a potentially LGA baby, but 3rd vaginally delivery? Wait for body to go into spontaneous labour itself assume it knows what it's doing or buy into the fear and get induced early?

What do you make of the 2022 change to the nice guidelines to ‘recommend’ (aka act if it is the only option ) to have an induction at 41 weeks bang on rather than 42 it was before.

my local trust just went to this, they used to provide collateral that the increase of still brith between 41 and 42 was small and it was from 42+ that things went up more steeply