Hiya, I’ll start by saying I am not a midwife….but I have recently had a baby in the hospital covered by Panorama. ( Caesarian required for pregnancy complications)
Is this your first baby? Mine was and in hindsight, medically there wasn’t very much that I could change. But my expectations for the level of support and care I would receive were far from what was given, I was very naive. I can’t fault the actual birth and Caesarian, they were great….once we got in there after being plonked in a side room and forgotten about initially.
In the shock of having a newborn and my passive nature anyway I didn’t like to ask for additional help,to ring the buzzer, to call for anything I needed or to remind them of things because I felt like an inconvenience. I never received my post surgery checks, my baby was low birth weight and they missed so much with him, I had heavy blood loss and transfusions and they forgot to do the extra check ins. Catheter forgotten about which resulted in a UTI, I was covered in blood for the 24 hours while I was in hospital too.
These failings weren’t down to the actual midwives, they were rushed off their feet and chronically understaffed and so those patients who shouted the loudest got the care basically. I saw midwives being called or buzzed by other patients while they were trying to work through rounds….then those rounds were never being completed and therefore aspects of aftercare not received.
My only advice is to really advocate for yourself, and better still if your DP/DH is with you they need to advocate for you if you can’t, make sure they know exactly what you want so they can speak for you if necessary. Don’t be afraid to call for help, or buzz, or say if you think something isn’t right. If you need call for help 15 times in the day or night, do it, don’t sit and wait or struggle. It’s really unfortunate that the situation is the way it is but the staff genuinely do care and try their best they are just pulled from pillar to post.
Congratulations and I hope all goes well!