to expect to get offered breakfast or at least a cup of tea before now on a ward ?

[shocknews]

I know people are busy etc (midwives don't do the food/drink here) but would it be particularly out of order to have hoped to be offered at least a cup of tea before 9.30am ! I delivered yesterday lunchtime, was given no lunch but was offered 2 slices of toast after i'd been sorted out etc. Then the tea scrum was at 6 (you get what there is left, no orders taken etc) and between then and now, not even a cup of tea or glass of water offered ! I had to ask for a jug of water at 11pm when I gave up waiting patiently ! How can they expect me to try to breast feed with no sustinence ?

...... or am I just hormonal and absolutely knackered from 3 sleepless nights already ?

Congrats! How exciting.

I had to stay in for a bit and we had to get our own. Hospitals don't generally have catering staff on hand to take orders,or are you suggesting adding it to the nurses' job spec? Am sure they'd appreciate it. We were brought water though. Meals they rang a bell and we went to the trolley unless you had had a CS in which case of course you had more help,otherwise you don't really need it on the whole. I liked any excuse to get up,just couldn't wait to go home.

Bloody hell, we have a crappy general hospital and even we get fed, the catering staff bring the food.

The dcs and me got fed when they were up their for hours having blood tests too, not bad grub either.

YANBU - that sounds shit!

When I had my ds they took orders and brought food to me while I stil had a catheter in, then there was a dining room where they served meals and had tea and biscuits available all the time. Couldn't take the baby into the dining room though so I couldn't have any breakfast until DP arrived to look after the baby!

As a nurse i think this is shocking though. On my surgical ward the patients get a selection of cereals, breads, jams, croissants + drinks for breakfast. Menus are completed for the other 2 meals + we order extra sandwiches for unexpected patients. There are always extra portions too when patients who have already ordered go home early. Hot drinks + biscuits are served 3x a day but we do make extra if needed.
We are v busy + stressed but food is part of patient care.
Annoying that lots of patients still moan + complain at us though - we don't cook it!
OP, it's best to ask staff for things but you should have been offered food.
You have a lovely healthy baby though now so congrats!

No one's said the nurses or midwives should bring you food. The hospital do employ catering staff.

I also don't know what they expect you to do with your baby while you trek across the ward in search of some food. Even if I hadn't been feeding DS pretty much constantly, I wouldn't have left him on his own while I went looking for food. As it was DH got me some vile muck food and had to feed it to me.

I had to start crying to the breastfeeding support midwife before anyone would instigate letting us leave. We never saw a paed at all, but at least I didn't get stuck there another night.

Things would definitely have been easier at home. I know where everything is; I could get DH to fetch stuff for me; I could get some sleep because there was only one screaming baby to keep me awake.

The hospital I had DS2 in is widely reputed to have the worst maternity unit in the country. I can say that it thoroughly deserves it's reputation.

Aaagh - brings back horrendous memories of DS1 birth 9 years ago. Horrendous 30hr+ labour, finally emergency c-section, exhausted and suffering from shock, asking for a glass of water and being ignored, must have been there for 10 hours before got water.
After 2 days finally made it out of bed to get to shower.

Second baby, VBAC - I was so getting out of the hospital the same day.

Chelsea & Westminster hospital.

YANBU.

I went into labour at 3.30am with DS. Had some breakfast before we left home at 6-6.30 (as I didn't know when I would eat again, thank god I did that) then that was it all day. DS was born at 3.04pm. 5am the next morning I still hadn't been offered anything at all from getting in the hospital. I had an epidural so I couldn't get up and I had to keep asking them for more water as my jug was running out a lot. Eventually I buzzed the MWs at 5am and asked for some toast which the finally brought me.

Think its pretty disgusting tbh!

Bloody hell. YANBU to expect a bit of help I don't think.

Well, the after care when I had dd was truly shitty but the one thing that was good was the catering. Woman appeared regularly with tea/coffee and at meal times. She even had a moan at me when I wasn't eating! The food was mostly horrid but it was there regularly.

\YANBU....congrats! When I had my last section I was left with nothing fr hours and when I hailed an assistant she ponted at the tap at the end of the ward! I had just had major abdominal surgery! I gave her a piece of my mind!
Press your buzzer and ask.

When I was a nurse (back in the Dark Ages, obviously) we had a supply of bread, butter and jam on the ward, so that we could make tea and toast for a patient who needed something to eat.

I am appalled by some of the stories on this thread - it absolutely IS a nursing responsibility to make sure that the patients are getting proper nourishment and fluids - so they should be seeing that every patient has a suitable meal delivered to them, or, if meals are served in a specific area of the ward, the nurses should be making sure that patients are either capable of getting there and getting their meal, or have had a meal brought to them.

Someone who is not getting proper meals and sufficient fluids is not going to heal/recover properly from any illness, or from labour, and as people have said on this thread, you need to be properly fed and watered in order to be able to breastfeed adequately.

The ward sisters who trained me would have torn any nurse guilty of such neglect into tiny little pieces, and would then have given each individual tiny piece an appallingly bad ward report!

Our local hospital is pretty crap but they did at least feed me when I gave birth to DS and had to stay in; they did tease me by asking if I wanted a drink/ painkillers and then not bringing them though!

IME it's just as bad in other areas of hospitals as well (contrary to what someone said a while back). DS (2yo) has been in a couple of times recently and didn't get fed because we arrived at 6ish and hadn't been there earlier to order his evening meal. I was incredibly about that. Then another time they turned up with only half of what was on the menu and no substitute so he got cremated fishfingers and a spoonful of beans and nothing else.

Surely it should be fairly high up someone's priority list to feed small children and new mums ffs?

I was in hospital for a week in total with Ds1 (4 days before the birth waiting for induction to work and 3 days after the CS). As i was there so long I got to suss out the system which was to fill in a card with what you wanted for the next meal and it got brought to you. I saw a lot of women come and go in that time who didn;t get fed because they weren't there 6 hours previously to fill in the card! If they were lucky they might get the food that the previous bed occupant had ordered. It seemed a fairly inefficient and wasteful system. After my CS I did burst into tears at one point because I had just been handed my breakfast, DS was down in SCBU and a midwife came and told me I needed to go down and feed him. I still had a catheter in and couldn't walk! I think sometimes it does come down to a lack of communication but I agree with those who say that it perhaps might be nice if it was a little more widely acknowledged that giving birth in any way is a pretty major ordeal and getting a bit of sustenance shouldn't be another one.

YANBU I would absolutely expect nurses to ensure patients are fed. There is not much point doing the other stuff if patients are malnourished. In any case, in a maternity ward, there is not much else that needs to be done for most mums but food is completely essential to their well being and recovery. At the very least, the nurses should notice if the catering staff are missing people out and remedy the situation. It unforgivable to let you go so long straight after birth without proper food. They wouldn't have done that to women in the darkest of dark ages.

My SIL gave birth today in Switzerland. She tells me that on the last night of her stay (standard 3 days for a normal delivery), the hospital will cook a special dinner for her and her DH, with a bottle of champagne provided, as they do for all new mums.

YANBU. Congrats on the birth of your baby OP!

When I had DD the staff forgot to fill the water jugs of myself and the woman next to me. A nurse filled the jug of the woman next to me as she had just had a catheter removed, when I asked for mine to be refilled she said it wasn't her job and left.

I burst into tears and had to leave DD alone to go to the shop and buy a bottle of water as I was bf and desperately thirsty. Thank goodness I was discharged the same day.

When I had DS (before DD) I didn't want to leave him to go to the canteen at meal times as he fed all the time, so for 3 days I only ate what my visitors brought me- was never left without water though!

I am pg again and have decided that I want to leave asap after birth. If I am on the postnatal ward and anything like this happens again I am just leaving.

I had DD at 7.40am and wasn't given food or hot drink until evening meal - no tea and toast for me.

Nurses and midwives are just so busy aren't they. Dealing with the constant chatter about nights out and holidays and surfing the net, etc.

Dirty toilets, dirty washing facilities, behind the bed - urgh. Everything too much trouble. Why don't we ever hear nurses complaining about the standards patients have to suffer.

It is not just on maternity wards that you have to fight to get a meal.

When my mum was in for a hip replacement the 80yo lady in the next bed did not get a meal for a whole day as her order had been lost. The nurses refused to get her anything.

When my dad arrived at visiting time in the evening she sent him down to the canteen to get this poor woman a meal.

This continued for the whole week that my mum was on the ward. Without my mum this woman would have literally starved to death.

You can get your own tea/ coffee and even biscuits where I was. And that is NHS in a deprived bit of London, so I'd be surprised if yours did not have that facility.

But there is some shocking aftercare for new Mums.

I had a c-section at 2pm (waiting since 9am). I was not allowed food or drink from midnight the previous night (I was blimming STARVING and dying of thirst by 2pm). I had the section and then the drugs made me feel sick. By the time the nausea wore off, it was past evening meal time, which meant I had no food. I was in the labour ward, so was not allowed general visitors and dh was with me helping with babies, didn't occur to him to go and get me a sarnie.

A friend sent me some soup in and thank goodness she did, or I would have had no food for more than 36 hours if she had not! And having just delivered twins and breastfeeding them, I did need a bit of food in me.

I would advise everyone to never set foot inside a hospital without a big bag of food and make sure to get someone to visit at least twice a day to get you anything you need.

You sure as hell won't get anything from the staff.

I can't really complain about the food in the maternity wards our local hospital, there is a breakfast room and catering staff bring your other meals to you. Even in the children's ward, when ds2 was in for a few hours observation, ds & I were both fed lunch and tea.

With regards to to painkillers and drinks requests, it seems to be all down to timing. I was in hospital 5 nights with DS1 (induced Saturday, baby born Monday, discharged Thursday) and I learnt to never request anything an hour either side of a shift change. An hour before the staff are winding down and passing over notes etc. An hour after, the new staff are getting to grips with each others gossip their new patients.

Just as an aside, expat said this:

"I told them I wanted to leave the next day at 6AM.

By 6PM, no paed, no dismissal, and DH had driven 2 hours to collect us.

I told them I was walking out, then and there, as we lived a very long way away (they knew this, too).

They got someone in in about 10 minutes."

Funnily enough, when I announced my desire to leave in the afternoon, having had DD1 that morning, the hospital couldn't find a paediatrician.

They found one within 10 minutes of me telling them that I was walking out too!

Odd, that...

Congratualtions.

I had DS in Tenerife and it was like the 1950's - no Dh/p in labour ward etc. I had ECS and was out on flat bed rest for 24 hours. No problems with food they just bought it to me without the need to order it. All I thought was FFS how am I meant to eat soup whilst lying flat.

I can't complain about the care given, always popped in (3 per room) to take obs but as far as baby was concerned no support, a fellow patient helped me stimulate the milk and supported DS whilst I fed as flat on back. They also insisted in taking him away constantly until I basically held him and refused to let him go .

Obviously I had DP there during the day.

Honestly though it just becomes an annoyance nothing more.

I got enough food when in hospital, after CS, but i was in for 3 1/2 days, and got moved 3 times the 1st day, 2 times 2nd day and they wanted me to move again the last day!
I told them i was going to discharge myself soon so i wasn't going to move, was a few hours until visiting time, they kept telling me i HAD to move.
I got up and dressed infront of the MW and started to walk out.
Funny after that she let me stay where i was and had a pead come just before we left

YANBU OP and congratulations.