Upset 😢😢

[luisa778]

Hi, I was wondering has anyone ever had a bad experience with any midwives, their attitude and just overall treatment of you during or after your pregnancy? I had a really bad experience with one in particular after my son was born and it has affected me really badly now, almost five months after he was born. Has anyone been through anything similar? Thanks

Have you spoken with the ward manager about what happened? If you want to tell us more we might be able to suggest what to do next.

It is worth writing to PALs or whatever the complaints area is at the hospital. Lessons may be learnt and it could also help you to process what happened.

Yes. The first woman I saw when I went in in labour with my first child, ds, was an absolutely revolting person. She examined me roughly and really hurt me. She was obviously pissed off that I wouldn't just turn round and go home when she told me to even though I had been in complete agony in labour for over a day. She pulled me about and examined me so roughly that I was too terrified to let anyone else near me for the rest of the labour. Turned out ds was stuck diagonally, back to back in the pelvis so couldn't progress - ended in an emergency section. I hate her and feel sick and angry when I think of her even now 16 years later. I hope she fell into the nearest manhole on exiting the hospital at the end of her shift.

Hi, Yes I did. I have three kids and with my first, I had an elective c section due to injuries caused by a car crash previously. One midwife was so horrible to me on the ward because I physically couldn't even move to lift my baby to feed or change him. I was made to feel like a real inconvenience. I pushed myself to get out of bed to get him and nearly collapsed, then she moaned at me for being stupid. The next day, I had a huge bleed when she said my 24 hours in bed was up and I needed to walk. I was lucky other midwives were there to help me as I kept losing blood. Again, she made me feel awful about it. I spoke to another midwife about it and she actually said nobody at work liked her and they had many complaints about her.
With my third baby, he had problems after birth with feeding. His mouth had a couple of problems which meant he couldn't breastfeed. I told SO many people he wasn't swallowing. They all said he was perfectly latched and was fine. He wasn't. He ended up back in hospital. On our admission to special care, a nasty woman came over and told me to feed him in front of her. I hadn't long tried and he was asleep. I told her everyone told me was feeding fine but he definitely wasn't swallowing. She said if he was latched fine, he was feeding fine and I wasn't feeding him often enough! I got very upset at that point. She went on to basically call me a crap Mum, assumed it was my first baby and I didn't know what I was doing. She then said 'If you don't want to breastfeed, stop messing around and just say. There's no need for all this. Your baby is ill now'. That literally broke me. I was exhausted and I had tried so hard and begged for help. I tried to feed him in front of her after waking him and she said he was just too tired to suck properly. My midwife who had cared for me during pregnancy came in not long after and I told her what the other one said and she was furious. She got a dr to come check my son and he confirmed a mouth deformity. I had been through all that and didn't get any support. No apology. The guilt I felt over not being able to breastfeed him was overwhelming and because of what that awful midwife said, I put myself through expressing to feed my son, day in, day out for almost 6 months. That did nothing for my mental health. I ended up isolated and lonely. I wish I'd had the balls to speak up for myself at the time but after a baby, you feel quite vulnerable and emotional.

I am expecting number 4 now and I keep telling myself that I will be strong this time. I'm an experienced mum and I know what I'm doing. I just hope I can stick to that.
You can make a complaint against the midwife, but I am not sure who you would go to to do so.

Wow I didn't realise midwives could be so horrible.

The worst thing to happen to me is my midwife kept insisting I had a 2nd baby because it was unfair to just have 1. I struggled with fertility and had about given up on wanting a baby then when we weren't even trying it just happened. My pregnancy almost killed me, and I said at the end of it I was grateful for what I have but no more.

She never manhandled me roughly though and she never thought I was being silly when I had concerns.

I never saw the point in a doula but I guess if your midwives are dreadful like some of these midwives on here then it helps to have someone advocating for you.

Sorry you had a bad time OP.

Contact the hospital in question and ask about their complaints procedure. Depending on the severity of the issue you'll want either an informal or formal complaint. Informal is resolved quicker as there's not a legal aspect, I think. You'll want to do it as soon as you can, within a year is the standard rule but the sooner the better.

I've been considering complaining about the questions the labor and delivery staff ask the women who phone in. To think they can judge the length of a contraction over the phone is ridiculous! Or to judge pain scale the same way. Not to mention, even a drug free au naturale shoulder dystorcia en caul delivery didn't even make it in the top 800 most painful experiences I have had.
Had I relied on impressing the staff whilst ringing in, I'd have had to ring them as I was crowning in the bath tub. With an emergency complication that could have killed us both and did end up with baby in NICU. I don't want to think what would've happened had I followed the staff advice to stay home.

Yes, I was laughed at for not coping after a very traumatic birth and 2 weeks in hospital. I went to my GP and she referred me to a midwife debrief counsellor at the hospital.this was very helpful to understand why my labour was so traumatic and also to discuss my treatment, It’s worth asking if your hospital offer a similar service xx

Not a midwife (but both hospital drs and nurses) I found telling PALs helped who then informed the department and I had a very long phone conversation (they offered face to face but as I'm disabled and it was a different city I requested over the phone) with management helped. Just getting it off my chest, realising I wasn't in the wrong, knowing it was going to be investigated (so hopefully won't be encountered again by me or someone else) helped me put the situation to one side and get on with my recovery. Worth a phonecall to PALs I think.

Yes, I was told "Well, this is all going pear shaped is'nt it? and she barked at a nurse "remove her nail varnish if she's got any on- we'll take her down (C-section)
A lovely doctor checked me two minutes later and my DS was born naturally ten minutes later.

Yes!
I won’t go into detail but yes, I had a very bad experience. I wrote a very long letter detailing what happened and how it made me feel.
I sent it by email to the hospital.
I got a very detailed response back advising me that some procedures had been changed as a result.
Also, when I had my second child at the same hospital I was allocated a senior midwife because the hospital acknowledged they made errors in my care at the previous birth.
Second time round I had a much better experience.
You don’t have to make a formal complaint to be heard. I’d recommend writing it all down and sending it somewhere like PALS. You’ll feel better for it.

As a midwife this is horrific to read, I just can't imagine treating women so poorly. I'm sorry a lot of you feel this way, please be rest assured that the majority of us would never ever be like that.

Contact PALS at the hospital you delivered.

ps, to add, you can also request a copy of your birthing notes. It may give you some more background information on why things happened when they did.

Yup. 16 years ago! DS was put into SCBU with breathing difficulties...it was v hit and miss for a few days. He improved, started feeding taking my expressed milk from a bottle. I was in a room about 4 mins walk away, recovering post C Section. I was told to be "on time" for feeding sessions. On one ocassion I overslept and arrived to DS about 5 mins late to find the SCBU nurse feeding him with a bottle of formula. She was rude and unapologetic....I've never forgiven that nurse for that day. That was at Royal Surrey , Guildford.

Just verbally abused for being a young mum by the onward midwife and told I wasn’t feeding my baby it was my fault. 24hours later of being made to feel like a shitty teenage mum who clearly just didn’t know how to feed a baby and a consultant it was found my child had an issue that made him not be able to feed.

I had a very poor experience with a doctor when in labour with my 4th child. I was upset but it was the midwife that reported her. The doctor was found to be suffering from stress and was put on enforced leave
( and probably counselling or similar) for 3 months.
So, by reporting, you not only get it off your chest but you may make a difference to others. By not reporting, you will be unable to start to put it behind you firmly in the past.

And to all the midwives thinking they would never treat a woman in labour badly, think again. You will have and some of you won’t realize you’ve done it. It just won’t have been reported.

So sorry to hearthese terrible stories. My midwives were lovely when I had my DC. and to you all!

I had a home birth after. The Midwife’s where like fresh air. I always wonder if it’s the ones who never leave the hospital who are horrible. I couldn’t see my home birth team being so mean to anyone very relaxed and fun.

And to all the midwives thinking they would never treat a woman in labour badly, think again. You will have and some of you won’t realize you’ve done it. It just won’t have been reported.

That is a horrible post. How do you know that all midwives will have behaved badly?

My midwife tried to pull my placenta from me, was terribly rude to my very worried and lovely DH and acted as though I was stupid when I asked not to be internally examined more than once. (I have previous sexual trauma, being examined at all is extremely distressing for me)

I was repeatedly told to go home, that I wasn’t allowed to make so much noise (I was breathing through a contraction, not screaming at the top of my lungs) and she stitches me up wrong.

I appreciate its very hard to be a midwife and it’s long hours and short staffed etc etc. But I will NEVER have another child now and it is solely because of my treatment post birth

Jeez, some of these are absolutely shocking. I was fairly lucky with 3 different sets of midwives, the nearest I got to a bad experience was with DC2. Arrived in massive pain (gave birth an hour later) and the first midwife I encountered was rude, cold and extremely dismissive. She disappeared once I was in a room and I said to DH I wanted her nowhere near me for my labour. Luckily she didn't come back, it was another, very efficient mw. They were clearly busy that night as became apparent later but that's no excuse to be hideous at the most vulnerable time of a woman's life.

@mckenzie, I stand by what I said. There are so many threads like these, so much upset and pain form giving birth. I’m sure most midwives are professional but that lovely midwife that delivered your baby may also have done something to cause pain in another patient. Unwittingly or not.

So many women in the wrong job. I had flashbacks for the first year after the birth of my eldest, and PND. She refused to believe anything I said including that I could feel the head coming out. When she realised she was wrong, and it was (had dilated v fast) she took her embarrassment/anger out on me!

I agree terrible. I appreciate it is a tough and stressful job but I think a big part of it is how they handle their stress. With my experience it was obviously a stressful shift for the staff but one midwife was horrible and another was not over the top and effusive, but she was kind and efficient.

If they are taking their frustrations out on patients, being rough in examinations and rude in manner, then they're not in control of themselves or managing their stress well.