Psting in AIBU for traffic - Bristol mum and newborn have gone missing, please keep your eyes open if in bristol!

[KnitFastDieWarm]

Apologies for posting here but the Avon and Somerset police are running an urgent appeal for the safe return of Bristol mum Charlotte Bevan and her four day old baby, who have gone missing from a central Bristol maternity unit and haven't been seen for over 12 hours. PLEASE keep an eye out for her and phone the police if you see her - she's white, around 5'8, dark hair, wearing a black top, black trousers and hospital slippers or flip flops. Her baby is wrapped in a stripey blanket.

Hoping and praying for a safe return sad

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/03/mother-baby-missing-bristol-maternity-hospital

I'm not talking about locking up. I'm talking about looking after people.

If someone had noticed that poor woman they could have spoke to her, for in support, contacted her partner if she did leave.

There is fault. I'm not about attqchingthat to one specific member of staff however there's fault and it needs addressed.

Interesting. On my facebook there are an awful lot of women posting about this and saying what bad experiences they had on maternity wards and how they are not surprised.

How on earth are people managing to blame this on breastfeeding??

I'm considering leaving this thread as I think it's quite ghoulish that people are discussing it on here and facebook about how breastfeeding may have contributed. Distasteful.

I would imagine that any decision to stop medication to breastfeed would be made in consultation with her mental health team and it would not be an easy decision to make.

Not to mention we don't even know if that is the case, for goodness sake! We could all post our breastfeeding experiences here but it is in no way reverent to this poor mother and a missing baby.

I would be very very surprised if any midwives had said that she has to bf, or judged her for wanting to. They'd hopefully be supporting what ever choice she'd make. Let's not make this about bf. This is a woman who has had something going on and it's useless to speculate at this point.

I'll try again as I have just lost a post!

I agree with Lovely, this has rattled me a bit as I was very poorly after having ds 13 years ago. I told the staff I felt suicidal more than once and I thought something was very wrong and they did nothing, eventually they stormed the room and removed razor blades and dressing gown cords but just left me, completely alone for the rest of the night, absolutely desperate. The care was dreadful , it was like no one had ever heard of post natal illness and this was a big, teaching hospital.

It took 3 weeks to get a place in a mother and baby unit, and I had to stay on the maternity ward all that time waiting with staff that were clueless.

So, although this situation with this poor woman might be completely different the cynical part of me doubts it very much

Owl I'm not blaming it on breastfeeding - I just think that there's so much pressure on mothers to be perfect, and that includes things like breastfeeding, when assistance and advice isn't given sensitively and with regard to each individual mother's circumstances. I don't want to speculate, I just think that new mothers are under so much pressure and social expectation and sometimes this is too much for even the most mentally robust people.

I just feel dreadful for her.

From the reports I have read it is not clear that the woman could have jumped off the bridge. They say she was found in the Gorge. The bridge is directly over the river, and the Portway, which has a covered section as the bridge crosses above it, so if someone jumps they mostly end up in the river or on top of the road tunnel. There are pathways down the to the Gorge, she could have simply walked down to the Gorge and then become overcome with the cold.

The bridge has cameras, it has high barriers to stop people jumping. It is not impossible to do but someone surely would have seen her.

If she went via Whiteladies Road that has cameras all the way along it. But, there are other routes if you wanted to avoid being seen.

All speculation though at this point, I just hope that they do find the baby, and her, if the body is not hers (unlikely) RIP whoever that poor soul is.

The pressure to BF is huge, if you haven't experienced it then lucky you. I didn't want to and the pressure from nurses in SCBU was unbelievable even when I explained I didn't want to and I was exhausted. It wouldn't have hurt my ds to have formula at all, he would have been fine. Anyway, we don't know that's what happened here but I don't think it hurts at all to raise the subject.

Such a sad story. Has baby not been found my thoughts are with the family.

Yep, I was pressured with my first and reversely when I had my second I was pressured to use formula. But this isn't a discussion about the pressure to breastfeed.

How many women give birth at that hospital every year? How many of those women give birth with a history of mh issues? How many women leave with their baby and throw themselves into the avon gorge? Cases like this are vanishingly rare hence the high exposure in the media. Knee-jerk reactions such as that things need to change and someone was responsible achieve nothing.

If this woman was not mentally ill enough to be under a section then it couldn't be reasonably expected she be kept under supervision for her own safety.

Mental illness is stigmatising. How many people come on here and say they feel that they are being singled out because of a past history of mh issues? Nobody comes on here and suggests that because someone - a mn poster - has had previous mh issues they should be kept under supervision at all times after giving birth.

Perhaps she expressed that she was not unwell. Perhaps the supervision was a precaution and she didn't appear to be unwell but there were concerns for the baby. Reality is that we just don't know, so to start attributing blame when there may not be any is not helpful - official enquiries may do that, but in truth there may not be official enquiries. A maternity ward is a public place, women are in fact free to discharge themselves, and although walking out at 8:30 at night is perhaps out of the norm the reality is that if she had wanted to discharge herself officially then she would have been free to do so, and she could still have been free to go and commit suicide if that's what she'd wanted to do.

There is of course still another possibility - afaik police haven't actually confirmed yet whether this was a suicide have they?

Nicky - but it is in a roundabout way as IF there was pressure it was the extra pressure that an ill woman couldn't handle and high lights a lack of awareness around general care after a woman gives birth.

and fgs does every bloody thread have to culminate in a discussion on breastfeeding?

Dame, I would suggest if you are interested in a breastfeeding discussion then create a separate thread? I don't feel it's appropriate here.

I just can't believe she was able to simply walk out of the ward carrying a baby. (Well, I can cos it's what's happened, but how?!) I've had 2 DC in different hospitals and on the post-natal wards of both you had to be swiped out by a member of staff or buzzed out from the nurses' station. If you wanted to leave with a baby you had to show them your paperwork & they checked that & the baby's ID bands. There was certainly no door release button on the wall. (There was on the ante-natal wards though.) But then I know that one of those hospitals had an incidence of a baby being abducted some years ago, these measures were brought in to try & prevent that.

Re:mental health - I struggled badly with PND, and ended up in a mother & baby unit. I was very lucky that I had been seeing peri-natal psychiatry since I was 12 weeks pregnant, so was known to them & they were monitoring me closely. I don't know how quickly things can move for a new patient. There's also the question of beds - at the M&B unit I was at there were only 4 beds. Also, I know not everywhere in the country even has peri-natal psychiatry coverage. I was told that I was right on the boundary, and if I lived a couple of miles further north there was no peri-natal provision at all (regardless of which hospital I was at). I also had an episode on the ante-natal ward where I was in a lot of distress (couldn't stop crying, was hitting myself etc). The midwives called the on-call psychiatrist who came along, said I wasn't actively suicidal as I couldn't be because I was in a hospital ward so therefore couldn't do anything, then just left.

I think questions do need to be asked as to how this tragedy was possible.

sorry about lack of paragraphs, am posting on my phone so typing into tiny little box & didn't realise I'd written so much

discussion on whether she might have been under pressure to breastfeed is not appropriate.

We know nothing about this woman. Nothing. We know she had a history of mental illness but we don't know how recently. She may have been on medication but her most recent episode may have been years ago. She may have been checked on for any number of reasons, struggling to latch baby; trying to establish bf; needing pain medication; there are any number of reasons why someone may have been checked on at 8:30 and again at 9:00, none of which might have been attributeable to her previous mh.

Speculating that "maybe she was under pressure to bf/maybe she was fleaing domestic violence (as read somewhere else on here) are just speculative and inappropriate.

Nicky - I'm not, I was picking up on what pp's had said about BF and general post natal care. I'll be sure to run everything I wish to post by you first though in future so you can proof read it and decide if it's suitable for the thread.

This is close to home for me.

I had DS2 a year ago while I was on medication for my MH conditions. I was very well supported throughout.

I stayed in hospital for 48hrs to make sure that DS2 didn't have any difficulties and was feeding well.

I swung to and fro on whether to BF right up to the point that he was placed on my chest after birth and rooted for the nipple. I knew then that the right choice for us both was the BF. Judge if you like.

Not all medication passes through into breastmilk and we don't know what this lady was on, if she was advised to come off it, or the opposite, or decided to stop taking her meds herself without telling anyone.

I was advised to not stop my meds (baby needs a healthy mum) but throat support however ilthey could if I did, and the BF choice was totally down to me.

We have absolutely no idea of the circumstances here, and I have to say some of the speculation people have been engaging in on this thread has been a bit

I'm thinking in particular of all the 'maybe she's fleeing DV / the family and friends might have been deceived by the boyfriend' stuff earlier on which was pretty disgusting tbh.

This is a truly tragic situation which is still unfolding.

Please think before you post.

its ludicrously easy for this to happen at every single maternity ward I have ever been on. I had my first at St Thomas' in London 10y ago and there was absolutely nothing to stop me leaving with my baby - in fact it was so deserted when we left we had to shout to find someone to tell them we were going. It was so deserted on the ward at night I could have gone round comittjng all sorts of crimes before anyone noticed. I spent most evening breaking into the locked cupboard that held the expressing equipment as nobody was around to give it to me. Ditto at the Surrey hospital where I had the next two, though it was slightly more organised and caring. My sister recently had a baby at Reading Royal Berks and when I went to visit, myself and 2 fathers were waiting for so long outside after buzzing and nobody coming that eventually she came out and let us in. they could have been abducting babies for all anyone knew.

maternity wards are so chronically understaffed (desserted at night) there's absolutely no way to stop this happening at the moment I think.

dame why be so arsey? You were continuing to post about breastfeeding experiences and I simply said this is not the thread for it as our experiences mean diddly squat to this poor lady.

But if you want to ask me before you post, then feel free. Or maybe ask wannabe too as she has made the same comment?

I could have walked out with my baby both times at the hospital where I gave birth. I only needed to be buzzed in.

Whilst we don't know what has happened it is desperately sad and I hope they find the baby alive.