Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

in thinking a 'check up scan' shouldnt be done in the same area as women having miscarriages, ectopics etc?

102 replies

misdee · 02/12/2010 17:46

i had to have a scan today to check position of baby#5. apart from this, i have had an uncomplicated pregnancy.

However, I was very aware of through the doors is the ward for women whose pregnancies arent going so well. They are also scanned in the same area :(

My previous scans inc dating and anaolomy scans have been done in a different maternity unit. Obviously there will be cases down there when news isnt good for some. but to scan someone with no major issues in the same area as women losing their babies seem insensitive and wrong.

why is this happening?

really felt for the women going past me with my bump :(

OP posts:
ClaireDeLoon · 02/12/2010 21:52

'Oh and who got a followup check after their ERPC?! I had... fuck all! Seriously do NOT get me started on that one.'

emptyshell I got a follow up scan after my ERPC, do you mean me?

Because I clearly said in my post it was after the second ERPC to confirm that this time they had done it properly. WHich was after I'd been readmitted as an inpatient after heavy bleeding (soaking a fresh pad and leaking through to jeans in the 20 min drive to the hospital) post first ERPC. And the reason I have problems with what should be a procedure like an ERPC is because I have a bicornate uterus, which means I have two cavities in my womb.

There is absolutely no need to be always so unpleasant to others.

Original poster
misdee · 02/12/2010 21:54

claire, i think emptyshell didnt get a followup scan at all, and feels maybe every ERCP should have a follow up scan? thats how i read it.

OP posts:
BellaBearisWideAwake · 02/12/2010 21:54

actually come to think of it, when I went to a private ultrasound clinic when I was bleeding at 10 weeks and couldn't see an NHS scanner for three days because of weekend and found out the baby had died at six weeks, I ran out crying past two couples, and probably didn't add to their happy experience - I felt bad about that - but there was only one way out, it wasn't a big clinic. And that wasn't NHS. It can just be impractical, I suppose.

It's the photos of babies I minded more - I suppose you can help that far more than the layout of the building.

Sugarmuppet · 02/12/2010 21:56

Its just horrible to be in a ward of Mummies and babies when your baby is fighting for its life at the other end of the hospital. Sad I still cry thinking about it 10 months on.

Original poster
misdee · 02/12/2010 21:57

sugarmuppet, its hard. as i said dd3 was whisked away late at night, i was still on the ward. i had toddlers climbing through to my cubicle from other visitors and i didnt have dd3 with me :(

OP posts:
Sugarmuppet · 02/12/2010 21:59

It sucks misdee, really it does.

Even more so when the bloody Bounty Woman came calling but that is another subject entirely. Angry

emptyshell · 02/12/2010 22:00

If you actually knew me and knew my previous posts - the complete stonking lack of any aftercare is a big bug of mine and it was a comment at THAT and NO FUCKING UNPLEASANTNESS TO YOU AT ALL!!!!!

Left wondering if bleeding's normal, left wondering if there's retained tissue, ashermans or anything else. Left wondering why you're still getting positive pregnancy tests, left wondering why you're going over two months and still no return of periods - has it all made you infertile? Left with the hormones going crazy in your system - people care and monitor the lucky pregnant women but you get sod all with miscarriage and ERPC. Yep I got naff all - had to sit and Google to try to find out if my body was ever going to work again.

Oh and that's before you throw in if you're daft enough to dare suffer from depression or anything - already mentioned how my GP basically gave me the suffer depression (yes I know you've basically admitted to me you consider suicide most days through it all) or have a coil fitted because you've miscarried which is causing your depression so I know you're having sex and might get pregnant and I won't give you any anti-depressant help whatsoever. If you hadn't mentioned you'd miscarried - I'd help you but hey ho be penalised some more for what's gone on.

Original poster
misdee · 02/12/2010 22:01

i told the bounty woman to clear off. as i had already seen the previous days on the ward.

dd3 came back to the ward with a feeding tube in place, and then had to deal with other mummies peering at her tube. and toddlers opening the curtains whilst i was doing tube feeds.

OP posts:
redflag · 02/12/2010 22:05

bloody bounty! i never forget after my son's funeral going home (a few days after) and receiving a letter from bounty congratulating me on my new arrival.

I know they didn't know but the whole room starting spinning and i was crushed.

Sugarmuppet · 02/12/2010 22:06

Just glad its all in the past for us Misdee. (Had a peek at your profile and you have the most gorgeous girly's!)

Sugarmuppet · 02/12/2010 22:07

Oh Redflag, I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you. Sad

Original poster
misdee · 02/12/2010 22:08

def glad its all in the past.

now di return for the birth or stay put and hold out for a homebirth again.

homebirth with the house decorated for xmas and all twinkly lights could be cool.

OP posts:
Original poster
misdee · 02/12/2010 22:09

oh redflag :(

bloody bounty indeed!

OP posts:
Sugarmuppet · 02/12/2010 22:11

A homebirth sounds just magical Misdee. Hope you get the labour, delivery and aftercare you deserve!

thefirstMrsDeVere · 02/12/2010 22:14

I had a Christmas homebirth and it was lovely. I had DCs 4 & 5 at home because I just cannot connect hospitals with anything nice every again.

DC4 was due boxing day but came on the 29th. I would highly recommend a lovely, cosy HB anyday. Xmas Smile

wildfig · 02/12/2010 22:15

I guess for medical staff working with female plumbing in general, the individual human dimension sometimes gets a bit lost. During all the investigations on my severe, hysterectomy-threatening fibroids I had to sit with expectant couples waiting for happy baby scans, and the consultant even told me the dimensions in terms of 'comparative foetus size', in the same breath as warning me that the operation to remove them might lead to such bleeding that he'd had to remove my uterus immediately. The ward where I had my myomectomy was right next door to the maternity unit, so we had to watch a procession of shining-faced new dads march up and down all day with balloons and flowers. I was the only patient in there who didn't leave with a hysterectomy. It wasn't a cheery place. Sad

soccerwidow · 02/12/2010 22:17

I will never forget being in the antenatal ward being induced with DS2. Dingy room, with crap curtains that didnt even go all around the beds.

At 6pm the day-assessment clinic closes and all the women are sent up to the antenatal ward instead.

So lying in the beds are women in early labour and those that don't know/just found out if they are losing their babies or not.

The women in the bed next to me was told that she had sadly lost her baby Sad

It is so not on!

siilk · 02/12/2010 22:18

I can't fault the hospital where i had DC2, he was stillborn. They went above and beyond. I had a single room and DH stayed.

I gave birth to DC3 earlier this year and they really went above and beyond.

Both the EPU and day assesment have scanners (mind you I hate DAU as this is where we discovered we had lost DC2). EPU is on the Gyn ward so well away from Antenatal and the Mat ward.

Mind you you still have bad situations. I was in for one of my last appointmets and got chatting to a lovely couple in for there 12 week scan. At my hospital the consultants do a dating scan in the antenatal unit. They were so excited. They went in - next thing they were being led out - MMC. Mind you it was done well. A midwife led here and her partner away to a private area etc. Was not taken past the waiting masses etc.

soccerwidow · 02/12/2010 22:20

sorry xposted again - DS got a bad cough and Ihad to settle him half way through posting.

So sorry about all your losses X

redflag · 02/12/2010 22:26

Thanks girls,

It was really hard. but what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. I just wish i didn't sign up for those things, i didn't with ds 2 and 3 just in case.

wineoclockyet · 02/12/2010 22:27

haven't read entire thread, just op, but when i had a mmc i had my follow up scan in the normal pregnancy area in the hospital :(

then again had i gone private for a private it would have been the same

sigh....

dracschick · 02/12/2010 22:27

Sadsome of these replies are absolutely heartbreaking.

Duchesse the woman definitely did say that,it was 17 years ago but it stuck in my mind.

TheUnmentioned · 02/12/2010 22:29

The hospital here only has one ward - antenatal and postnatal. Its horrendous, women with serious pregnancy problems next door to women with lovely new babies.

When I was in that ward was full, I was kept in the labour obs ward (as no beds not for any reason) and a pregnant teenage girl was opposite me, she had an infection and was terrified about her baby whilst I sat breastfeeding and she could hear teh screams of pain from a labouring woman next door - horrific.

MrsTittleMouse · 02/12/2010 22:32

This thread is so :(.

I have have been in the gynae/antenal/maternity bits of three hospitals and only one got it right.

I needed to go to see an OB/GYN about a gynae matter when I was pregnant, and she insisted that I was booked into her antenatal clinic. Which caused the receptionist a bit of a stress, as I was getting antenatal care from a different hospital, but was very sensitive to the needs of the gynae patients. So thumbs up to that consultant.

But both hospitals where I have delivered have had all the gynae stuff completely intermeshed with the maternity stuff. Same waiting room, even, for one hospital. Angry And then there is the hospital with the infertility clinic in between the lifts for the labour ward and the antenatal clinic. And the (poorly labelled) labour ward next to the (poorly labelled) gynae ward. I wandered into that gynae ward at 8 months pregnant and luckily was met by a nurse who could usher me out before the patients saw me. But why have them next to each other? And why not have proper signs over the bloody doors?

I was lucky enough to have private fertility treatment, so we avoided the NHS hospital and the maternity unit. Our clinic was in a separate building next to the workplace creche, but hey, ho. Hmm

I just don't understand how hospital after hospital have made the same mistake and lumped together all the "womens' problems" wards in the same area. Have they had no feedback over the years?

soccerwidow · 03/12/2010 09:15

I know it is so sad. My Mum had a hyserectomy about 20 yrs ago and was in a ward with new Mothers and others with pregnancy problems,

So sad that things have not moved on!

Swipe left for the next trending thread