To think that some women have an awful time on the postnatal ward

[elliejjtiny]

This isn't a slag off the midwives thread. In my case the midwives were perfectly lovely and kind, just very overworked.

My 2 experiences on the postnatal ward with DS4 (now 18m) and DS5 (now 6m) were horrible. I had caesareans both times and both babies were in NICU, although DS5 came and joined me on the ward for the last 3 days. Once my catheter was out I had to make my own breakfast, fetch other meals and drinks from the ward kitchen, take expressed milk down what felt like endless corridors to NICU every 4 hours and sterilize all the bottles, pump bits etc. I didn't have DH with me as he was looking after the DC's or any visitors who stayed more than 5 minutes. I could have really done with some tlc in my vulnerable and hormonal state. And some decent painkillers. I wasn't allowed morphine after the catheter came out because it made me wobbly, just paracetamol and ibubrofen. I take more than that for period pains.

But when I talk about it I get told that it didn't happen or that I'm being negative or exaggerating. It makes me feel like I'm going mad. So come and tell me your awful postnatal ward stories so that I know I'm not alone.

'Midwifes are fully capable of dealing with most things.'

Hahahaahaahahahahahaaahahhaaaaahhhaaaaaahhhaaaa!!! Now I have come across some dogs who were definitely cleverer than some cons I have met, but that statement alone really takes the biscuit.

'Midwives are fully capable of dealing with most things' - I would suggest that some people on this thread would disagree.

Are MW allowed to prescribe pain relief? Even stuff you can get OTC outside a hospital?

Yes. Midwives can prescribe any over the counter meds, can also prescribe stronger diclofenac than OTC and can also prescribe anything on that hospitals PGD list.

What they can't normally prescribe is stronger than OTC codine and morphine.

Leaving aside the issues of who has authority to prescribe what, why is it that post natal women are routinely refused pain relief? Why was I expected to grit my teeth and get on with things straight after a c section, with only two paracetamol, whereas when I had much less invasive surgery on another ward, I came round from surgery with a morphine pump ready to deliver pain relief if/when I needed it.

Hmm, I wonder why I was only given paracetamol after what a consultant delightfully described as a "Semtex suppository" birth.

Good question treacle. I had assumed because it passes into breast milk but I'm interested if there are other reasons, as some women cannot or opt not to breastfeed.

I will admit that after giving birth for the first time this year and experiencing the postnatal ward, the 'cold' stable with 'only the oxen standing by' sounded remarkably more appealing than it ever had previously when they were describing it at the crib service tonight. :/

I brought my own pain meds in my bag for my last hospital delivery, after being denied pain relief. Then had home births.

We have a horrible situation on our ward where we've been banned from dispensing packets of pain killers for women to take home. We did this for years with no problem.

Now the prescriptions have to go to pharmacy. So we do early morning drug round. Send the prescriptions off. They don't come back till mid afternoon at the earliest.

Which means when someone who's had a section 48 hours previously wants pain killers at lunch time they can't have any.

Oswellkettle.

What an offensive post.

Havent read any responses so just responding to OP. Yes you are BU in my view. Its a hospital not waitress service. If you are well enough to move about, you can stick a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster. If the midwives are overworked surely their priority is safely delivering babies rather than fetching you your lunch. I too had babies on NICU, had to sterilise my own expressing equipment, take milk down 2 floors to put it in the NICU fridge and NOT ONCE did I feel resentful. The hospital with specialists, drs, midwives had given me 2 babies and I hoped the midwives would be able to do the same think for someone else, not waiting on me hand & foot. Don't get me wrong there are definitely instances of unsatisfactory care but your experience is not one of them in my view.

Viva does that mean that they do eventually get some pain relief? I mean, it's not ideal, but later is better than not at all.

But what about the outright refusal of pain relief? I, and many others on this thread, and in real life, were unable to actually get anyone to agree to anything stronger than paracetamol despite having had surgery. I'm no slouch when it comes to pain, I have quite a high pain threshold (one of the midwives in the delivery suite even commented on it) but after my cs the pain was indescribable and begging for pain relief and getting two paracetamol and a cup of peppermint tea was frankly one of the most distressing experiences of my life.

I was just wondering what the medical reasoning is behind it?

I really hope you aren't a midwife or a nurse Mandy

Mandy I think you should read the rest of the thread.

Regarding the pain relief, there are a lot of agency and bank staff who do not have access to the ad hoc or the CDs, so have to wait for core staff to dispense them. Therefore the process is slowed down.
It's not just the drugs, they don't have access to phlebotomy equipment, or venflons, formula etc, and also don't have passwords to complete admission/discharge papers. So core staff are doing extra work, whilst getting paid much less than agency.

To be fair to Mandy, she did say she was providing an answer specifically to OPs question. She did say she has not read other posts (many of which are awful. Many of which are negligence), and I read her response to be a fair, while not compassionate, response to OPs question. OPs original post does not contain or highlight much of the abuse that goes on in maternity wards, and so, bashing Mandy for not acknowledging or addressing those issues is unfair.

Wow, this is way too late for me to be trying to string sentences together. That wasn't autocorrect, that was me this time.

My son was born prematurely , he went straight to scbu. They took me back to a post natel ward surrounded by women and their babies . My son was very poorly and could have died ( he aspirated more than once and wouldn't feed , so it was a real possibility. I felt it was so cruel and asked to be put in another room or ward but they wouldn't move me . I'm normally a very calm rational person but I did lose the plot and shouted at the bounty woman who frankly was very in my face . I was crying in pain and upset and the nurse came and asked ' what's wrong now ??!!' . It was a horrible experience . To top it off they wouldn't take me to the scbu or let me try and walk myself !!

treaclesoda. Where I work all women who have had a section are written up for regular paracetamol, diclofenac and codeine. Most are written up for as required morphine though I have to say in nine years I've only known a couple of women need the morphine for break through pain. We try not to give it unless necessary as a drugged up mum with a new born baby isn't a good combination. But if the other analgesics are taken regularly it lessens the chance of needing morphine. I'd give morphine if someone really wanted/needed it.

Its sad reading this thread. I'm not saying my units perfect. We have complaints about times waiting for discharge, we do get some complaints about staff attitude but I have to say the majority of stuff I'm reading I'd like to say I don't think would happen where I work. And I think that's down to staff attitude and culture of the unit. The midwives I work with are proud of the unit and genuinely care. Yes sometimes someone might have a bad day but I think very rarely.

We are busy though, badly busy. And you can't please everyone. I once had eight women to look after and one was very sick. On facial oxygen, constant obs, getting Drs to see her, ringing up ITU outreach and getting her seen by them before she was finally transferred. The woman in the bed opposite who had seen all this then complained that she'd had to wait two hours for me to do her discharge paperwork.

Thanks for explaining Viva, that sort of makes sense. Would you say then that the situation you described where you no longer have access to the standard drugs immediately makes it harder to manage pain relief, if you can't keep to a regular schedule?

I've realised that I left something quite important out of my post which is that I'm allergic to diclofenac. I begged for something else but was told that diclofenac was the standard post op pain relief. I'm not anti midwives, btw, this was my good post natal experience, because the rest of my care was good, it was just the lack of pain relief. I live in utter terror of becoming pregnant again, because I can not face the thought of that pain again. It was worse than labour because 1) in labour there was gas and air and 2) no matter how awful labour is, you know that every pain brings the end a step closer.

That's interesting Viva, where I train all our post section women have morphine (oramorph) for at least the first 24 hours. I even had one woman who was still taking it 3-4 days afterwards but we were trying to wean her off it. We don't give diclofenac though, we used to but that was changed. I can't remember why now, I shall have to try and find out. We don't give codeine to breastfeeding women either. I feel a bit embarrassed about how pathetic our pain relief is sometimes. We go on to women about it being major abdominal surgery and then ask them if they want paracetamol. I know people who take that for mild headaches not after surgery pain!

I'm horrified to read about the lack of pain relief on here. We do regular drugs rounds so everyone should be offered something at least 3 or 4 times a day. We have also just started doing CARE rounding, which means someone should check on the woman every 2 hours and make sure she's comfortable and ask if she needs anything. Lots of people have moaned about doing it, but I actually think it works really well as there are women who we barely see due to more complicated women taking up our time so at least they are still getting checked on regularly.

I have to admit, I'm very worried about qualifying and working on postnatal ward. I absolutely love it there but I feel very harassed a lot of the time, particularly when there are visitors. I know a lot of the midwives hate postnatal ward and talk about it being the place where the old midwives go to die. I spoke to one who said she didn't like it because it was too nursing based and she didn't go into midwifery to do nursing. It is very different to the other wards but I actually really like the nursing aspect of it. I much prefer it to labour ward anyway. I've only done one night shift on there and it terrified the life out of me. It was absolutely heaving, about half the ward were on IV antibiotics, millions of obs needed doing, the call bell was going constantly and there were only 2 midwives on and 2 care assistants which just isn't enough (and there was me, a student but I was only there because I got called in from community). None of us got any breaks all night, and one of the midwives was 7 months pregnant and struggling to walk by the end. But we couldn't tell her to go and have a break because there just wasn't time. That night really opened my eyes as to how bad it is and made me scared about how I'll cope once I'm qualified. It must be so easy to miss something on a night shift when you're tired and there's not many of you. Scary.

Yes on day two when the prescriptions are at pharmacy it makes it harder. Though they go home that afternoon when the prescriptions come back so to be honest we don't really get to see how long it takes them to get on top of the pain again.

Though I have to say the majority of women cope ok with having to wait a couple of hours longer than ideal for the pain relief.

I do fully understand that a section is a major operation but its funny some smaller operations seem to cause higher pain than a section. I have no idea if its to with nerve placements or what. But the majority of women are ok on paracetamol and diclofenac, neither of which are particulaly strong pain killers. Which is amazing when you think what major surgery it is. I had a section myself and while I'd never expect everyone to have it as easy as I did I was pain free by day two and stopped taking my painkillers as I didnt need them.

Its a shame you're allergic to diclofenac. Definitely the women who struggle with pain relief are the ones who can't take diclofenac and they're the ones I'd make sure were written up for as required morphine just in case.

If I were you and had another baby I'd have this situation explained in my birth plan. About what happened last time and that as you can't take diclofenac you would like oramorph or sub-cut morphine prescribing by the Dr before you leave theatre (assuming you have another section). Perfectly reasonable request and one I'd expect to be acted on.

Hahahaahaahahahahahaaahahhaaaaahhhaaaaaahhhaaaa!!! Now I have come across some dogs who were definitely cleverer than some cons I have met, but that statement alone really takes the biscuit

Just because they are capable doesn't necessarily mean that they do what they're capable of, or are able to.

Hi viva, I wish you had been my midwife. Still pretty traumatised by the whole thing,

I am nearly 6 weeks post c section still taking ibuprofen and paracetamol. Still in pain. I have dihydrocodeine on repeat prescription but due to ineptitude on our part we have mislaid the packet.

On the ward those drugs didn't touch the pain. I had oramorph twice and then got transferred and midwives wouldn't let me have it. Oramorph still didn't deal with the breakthrough pain.

Am I unusual? I am still in tears most nights with the pain/ trauma? And had pretty much the same experience when I had an episiotomy 2 years ago.