Birth trauma - poor maternity tolerated as normal report says

[Justkeepswiimming]

Is this the experience of the majority?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4n1jv7xxpwo?trk=public_post_comment-text

I think we all have pretty grim tales to tell of Birth experiences. From both our own experiences and those of our friends. Are the resources just not there to care? I had a wonderful Midwife who delivered my baby, but prior to that had to beg for someone to check me once I'd been induced because I was in agony. Was written off as being a wimp. They wouldn't check me. I was in tears in a shared ward, on my own trying to make no noise. When they finally checked me they realised I was far along and sent me to the labour ward.

The next day I was desperate to leave, after finding myself with a male midwife who didn't even introduce themselves before starting to express me. A horrid experience. All round.

I've read lots of awful stories, and wonder how we've got here.

I am child free by choice but do follow these threads.

The accounts on here are searingly awful. Yes a majority of women might have 'safe' births but God Almighty the system is clearly failing.

Something must be done.

I am SO passionate about this and this new information doesn’t surprise me.

There is definitely a culture problem within maternity NHS wards in which women in agonising pain are treated very poorly and deemed to be wimps or lucky to be where they are, and every other bugger in the room is prioritised. The wildly different expectations set for maternity patients, compared to other patients in the hospital (who are unlikely to be experiencing the pain maternity patients are) is shocking.

The withholding of pain relief is completely cruel and barbaric and happens on no other ward. If it wasn’t for my DH who was an amazing advocate for me and had to get really stern about them getting me pain relief NOW, I wouldn’t have had any - not that or even worked as I gave birth before it kicked in so it was pointless!

I was also ignored when I said I needed to push. Was told “No you need to vomit not push it’s far too early for pushing”, dismissing my own instincts. It turns out, a minute after giving me pain relief injection (which takes 45 minutes to kick in, which I didn’t know until they were injecting me) they checked me and DD was crowning. No acknowledgment that I was right, and I had a 3rd degree tear as a result because there was no time for an episiotomy.

The whole maternity culture is intrinsically linked to misogyny, belittling women’s health problem, not listening to or prioritising women, and more. Yes there are great midwives and nurses but the culture is the problem and the good ones are fighting hard against it. Sadly there are also terrible midwives.

Even little things like women having to get up to get their own meals just a few hours after pushing a human out the middle of their body, I see as linked to misogyny. Every other ward where people are more mobile has patients getting their food brought to them. We are told it’s to help us get up and about, but there’s no evidence I can find that says walking in extreme pain and discomfort mere hours after giving birth (and especially if a birth didn’t go as well, they still expect you to be up and walking) accelerates healing. In fact research points towards rested postnatal bodies recovering more quickly. In my mind it’s the expectation that women should not be sitting around that drives this, heaven forbid we have a rest. I refused to get up both times I had a baby, I said no I’m sore and I’m not up to waking. You’d have thought I told them to fuck off they way they reacted.

Dont even get me stared on men in postnatal wards, especially being allowed to sleep over.

Nothing is changing and it’s getting harder for women to speak up.

I'm so sorry for all those had bad experiences. Both my labours were fantastic. Got properly cared for.

I didnt say the parents are to blame for their inaccurate understanding. What i said is that the media publishing these inaccuracies makes the stories look untrue to people who already doubt its accuracy.

It is awful to hear these experiences including yours @toothypeggys

This narrative being pushed that women who endured birth trauma had unrealistic expectations of labour is ridiculous. I was the most easy-going, relaxed person going into my induction- I didn't bother with a birth plan as I was just happy to go with the flow yet 18 months on I am still struggling to process what actually happened during the birth of my son. Im not sure how I am supposed to be upset my birth didnt go to plan when I didn't have a bloody plan to begin with! I am sure there will be a few women out there who were upset that they didn't have the birthing pool they wanted but none of those women will be deluded enough to claim they suffered "trauma" as a result of it.

It's just another way of trying to push the blame onto women.

One example in the report states that the woman was denied an epidural due to low platelets. Okay, that is good practice.

If it said, she couldnt have an epidural due to low platelets and no other forms of pain relief were discussed or offered, that would make it poor care. Not offering an epidural due to low platelets is good care.

Another thing: many women complained about visitors being sent home yet many polls suggest that having overnight visitors is not liked by many women who dont want men in the wards at night. In the report, they do not counter this with that fact - it would seem as if everyone wants husbands to be able to stay and we forbid it.

My Trust allow it and we get complaints that we should stop fairly frequently.

I've never been in a less caring environment than the maternity ward I was on, it was brutal. My cousin is married to a Nigerian woman and she was appalled at how I was just left to fend for myself and take care of my baby after having major surgery.

I genuinely don’t understand the cult like not believing woman are in labour and checking. My friend went in at 10cm and they hadn’t let her in before as she was able to speak on the phone. Baby was born flat as she had been at home trying not to push for hours at 10cm as they wouldn’t let her in.

I am worried about going in later this year for the first time.

This! The not providing food and drink to brand new mums who are also told not to leave their babies but can’t move and then locked if ask for food/drink/help. It is genuinely terrifying thinking about going into labour in the UK and that is against the producing of relaxing happy hormones.

Single rooms and allowing dad/mum/partner/friend to stay 24/7 to help is the only way. It shouldn’t be but it needs doing

I would bet they complained because no support was provided by medical staff. It was my experience and the experience of many others in the hospital I gave birth. You go out of your way to belittle the gravity of the situation.

I remember being moved to the ward after difficult birth and pph and not being given food as that needs to be ordered 24 hours in advance

I was so so hungry

I completely resent the notion that women expect too much.

We aren’t idiots, we know births can be unpredictable.

I went into hospital last week for a hysterectomy.

What I expected was:

• Empathy and understanding
• Pain relief
• To be listened to post-procedure
• A drink and some biscuits and something to eat, brought directly to me

I got all those things.
I had to fight for those things in labour and postnatal wards. It seems like others do too.

No woman is moaning because she can’t sit on a lily pad and be fanned by large leaves. To not be in pain that is so intense it makes them vomit, is really not a huge ask. And if you leave a woman in pain and tell her it’s the best thing for pushing later - of which I have never seen any research (I HAVE seen plenty of research that says avoidable stress during pushing increases the chance of harm exponentially) - you are barbabric.

I reckon people who say they want men to stay over are looking at their nice man and thinking how they want him there.

They aren’t thinking about all the other husbands they’d have to share a room with

Disgraceful

My SPD that resulted in being pretty much housebound in the last weeks of pregnancy was brushed off as "pregnancy aches and pains". After 40 hours of labour, an EMCS after 2 hours of pushing, over a day on HDU due to other complications before being woken and dumped into the main ward in the early hours of the morning to release the MW, was then left to fend for myself and an exhausted baby struggling to feed. Breakfast in the day room was further away than I'd been able to walk in the past month even before the surgery and complications. It wasn't taken seriously. There was no point in pressing buzzers; no one came. Even when discharge finally came, no one cared about how I'd get my broken body out of the building. I was just told that if I couldn't walk to the car then I shouldn't be discharged, but by that point I was desperate to get out after days of stress and chaos and just wanted my own bed so shuffled off a few steps and a break at a time. It was a week before I left the house again.

The experience was very patchy. Recovery and HDU were fine. Elsewhere, short staffing and lack of communication were major problems that make a difficult time worse. Sometimes its little things like are you supposed to abandon your baby to shower/ get food. Sometimes its bigger things like not knowing what to do with a baby that doesn't stop crying. At one point, I dropped DS on his head because my strength gave out while trying to lower him into the crib. This was just the "aftercare" after a difficult labour and emergency surgery.

There was a lot to deal with to face DS2's birth, not helped by facing having to be monitored which took me straight back to everything spiraling out of control, panic and unmanaged burning pain from torso to knees. A visit to Labour Ward with a specialist MW helped significantly in preparing for birth 2. Birth 2 had its own issues, but what really stuck with me was the MW facilitating me to get my body comfortable, and when shit was about to hit the fan, she quietly talked into my ear, told me what what happening and what was going to happen next. Birth 2 had a longer physical recovery, but that care and communucation meant that it wasn't mentally traumatic.

This was early 2010s.
The hospital has recently had severe issues flagged, but there is a long running issue of short-staffing and consistency of care in the maternity department. Austerity hadn't hit at the point that DS1 was born; it's a culture issue.
Sometimes it doesn't take much to make a difficult experience one that's easier to process and reduce trauma.

Yes I didn't realise it was even possible to vomit because you are in so much pain. Only offering me paracetamol after a C-section was just vicious in my opinion. Years later I had surgery in a private hospital and I was stunned that I experienced zero pain after surgery or during my recovery because my pain was properly medicated and carefully managed. I was also surprised at how the nurses actually cared for me, helping with showering, helping with getting comfortable in bed, helping with dressing.

Well I had effectively the same surgery as a c-section last week and got the best meds possible but I’ve never known a woman have a c-section and come away with anything stronger than paracetamol

but she just kept chuckling.

And it's this, among many many many other things, is the problem - it just seems be accepted as okay, "oh ha ha the silly little woman thinks XYZ well isn't she an idiot/ going to get a surprise..." (implied strongly if not said explicity); whether or not the mother-to-be is actually right or wrong is immaterial this is a disgusting ingrained way of treating mothers who are in or may be in labour. It's the thin end of a very big and very dangerous wedge of WOMEN NOT BEING LISTENED TO OR RESPECTED which as we see from this report, the enquiries, and copious amounts of anecdotal information and academic studies, too often results in birth-related injury to mother or baby (to include psychological damage).

I was also told I would be ages when in labour (I wasn't, I was just like my mother had been), and treated disgustingly by one midwife later in the evening, thankfully she went off shift. Fortunately, that birth in the end went well from a clinical point of view. On reflection later, I realised that there had been various non-emergency events at the final clinic appointments and in labour where consent was neither sought nor given, resulting in what are actually legally assaults. This was decades ago and in other ways the care was good and the services weren't so overstretched. But it seems to me that times have not changed, in fact they seem to have gone backwards in at least half of maternity units. Although resource is a fundamental problem at the moment, a lot of it is about ethos and attitude. That can be fixed without recourse to funds but it does require EFFORT.

(There is also a similar problem with ethos and attitude with regard to the care of people who are elderly, disabled, or both, in hospitals, which is outside of resource pressures, but due to weak leadership and individuals with a dubious understanding of personal decency and personal responsibility.)

Thanks of course go out to all those wonderful midwives, nurses and other staff who do have a great attitude, do their best in the circumstances, and often have to deal with the consequences from systems (IT, or otherwise in the broadest sense) that make their jobs very difficult as well as their less competent or less ethical peers or seniors.

I completely resent the notion that women expect too much.

Exactly, at the population level, no we certainly do not. In fact, our bar for what is acceptable is often set far too low due to social pressure.

The not providing food and drink to brand new mums

How this is deemed as culturally, morally, socially or medically acceptable is beyond me.

Again, there are unfortunately parallels with food and drink for other very vulnerable patients, including those that are in A&E or AAU and are DIABETIC (and often with labour or other admissions, it's not been possible to plan in advance).

This is important in its own right with regard to mothers (I am very aware this is a birth trauma thread) but it's also a meta-problem as well. What has happened to us as a nation?

Without adequate water and food, you cannot have health.

They felt unsupported when they left and i really dont think women feel even available staff makes up for that

No they complained because they dont want men in the wards. Keep up with the conversation.

The reports says they want men in the wards overnight. A lot of people do not want that. To provide the type of support a partner can, we would need 45 staff members per shift.

I had this too after a pph, surgery and 24hrs in HDU- was too late to order dinner so got whatever was leftover after the rounds, thankfully my mum was able to run down to the hospital shop before it shut to get me some crisps and drinks to go with the mangy tiny ham sandwich!

I think it's you that is mixing up different issues throughout all your posts. It is of course plausible that different sets of women have expressed different wishes. I explained that those that would like their partners during the night are likely those that received poor or no care from medical staff. I and other mothers in the hospital where I gave birth expressed the same wish once we realised what was going on. Either you conflate things to suit your narrative or you fail to understand why such complaints can be made in the first place. In either case, your comments serve to confirm the findings of the report.