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.

And why can't you punch the Bounty staff? Are there aren't any MNers who'll admit they do that for a living? Is there any way of stopping them cataloging and databasing your child?

There's just not enough staff. Iv found the staff that are there were great but they just didn't have enough time.

Oh god I'm pregnant and this is terrifying me.

I had really positive experiences with ds1&2. Hopefully 3 will be the same!

I'm so sorry people have to go through this!

I've posted my postnatal ward experiences on MN before but it was terrible - I had a friend in the same hospital for something else at the same time and the difference in care was staggering.

I was in for five nights and was awake with no sleep for over 90 hours - then only 2-3 hours sleep after that. I was near hallucinating and the midwives refused to take DD so that I could sleep (she wouldn't sleep in the Perspex cot, just cried, and the midwives told me off when she cried, so I lay awake all night every night for over four days holding her in the bed but too scared to sleep in case she fell out. She would only sleep on me or when cosleeping when we got her home, too, but at least then I could set the bed up and cosleep properly.)

I hardly ate, was severely dehydrated because I didn't drink enough, the ward was too hot and I was next to the heater for the entire ward. I had had a traumatic birth and got an infection in my stitches (again I think because the bathrooms were so filthy....they smelt awful, too, and there were very few of them, only 2 loos for about 20 women).

The breastfeeding support was terrible, they wouldn't discharge me until DD fed but she wouldn't latch properly (most probably from forceps head trauma), my milk didn't come in for nearly six days (again probably from my trauma at the birth, though nobody mentioned this to me, I only later realised why it had probably come in so late from reading a book).

Many of the midwives were borderline incompetent, and lots were dismissive and actively unkind. I was in for two nights being induced beforehand and the antenatal ward was just as bad - in fact the (very inexperienced) midwives there botched my induction and caused a great deal of pain and trauma too. I considered making a complaint to PALS but never went through with it in the end as I was too shellshocked and traumatised by the whole experience.

YANBU

You don't even need a qualified midwife most of the time - a well trained MSW to help you with feeding, make you comfortable. Just a bit of kindness and an acknowledgement that you are feeling fragile and disorientated would go a long way.

I chose a homebirth with and IM for my second, despite my gestational diabetes, because my experience of postnatal care with my first was so poor.

cherubim - that sounds hideous. :-(

Oh my goodness, why did I read this thread? I'm having an elcs in just over three weeks time and now terrified about the PN ward. bangkokbaby I hope my care mirrors yours, I'm delivering in the princess royal in Glasgow too.

I empathise with you op! I had a csec with my DD and the nurses were awful, I was put under GA and the day after I asked a nurse to pass me my baby as I was wobbly and in pain and she replied 'do it yourself, she's your baby you need to learn' I spent days feeling inadequate after that. It is due to a shortage of staff and it's such a shame that so many woman are let down at such an amazing yet vulnerable stage in there lives

The first time I'd had a spinal block and emergency forceps delivery, barely had the feeling back and they basically just dumped me in a room and told DH he had to go home until 8 or 9 am (this was at about 3 am). I had to keep calling for the midwives all through the night because I couldn't move properly and felt incredibly weak (obviously!) and was petrified of dropping him. Also he kept crying and I couldn't seem to get him to stop, the midwives were constantly trying to find little things that I could possibly have done wrong. One was that his babygrow was too tight (the only one I'd packed in my hospital bag that remotely fit him- I wasn't expecting to have a ten pound baby!!) so that made me feel like utter shit. Then it was because I'd had a swig of fresh orange juice, must have given him stomach cramps . Oh it was just a really difficult experience from start to finish... and YY to having to wheel him down in his little fish bowl cot thing to go get a bowl of rice crispies, thought I was going to pass out a good few times.

It was :( and this is one of the UK's best teaching hospitals. :( The clinical care was great, mind you - the obstetric midwives were lovely and clearly a cut above the ward midwives, and the doctors were great (emergency forceps). But the antenatal and postnatal care was unbelievably bad. I still can't bear to think about how awful it was and how it ruined my first few weeks/months with my baby. I did go on to bf for two years afterwards, but no thanks to anyone on the postnatal ward (when I was wincing with pain when latching DD on one midwife said "You clearly are unwilling to breastfeed" in a nasty tone of voice - no I bloody wasn't! If any of them had actually taken the trouble to look they would have been able to tell my milk hadn't come in! ) :)

YANBU!!

I had a CS, wanted to get up & about to do things but seemed to be denied the pain relief that would possibly help make this easier.

Can't say that I found the midwives caring or even vaguely interested in their patients.
Everything seemed to be one huge inconvenience for them.

It surprised me but made me view them in a completely different way to those sugary sweet ones you see interviewed on OBEM.

I thought introducing yourself was a basic that you'd expect from a healthcare professional.
One of mine overnight just grunted at me- I made a point of introducing myself but she didn't really get the hint.
Maybe my expectations were too high!

The postnatal ward is like the hellish forgotten ward of the hospital where no doctors go unless summoned. I guess they shouldn't have to if everyone is "well"

Good thread OP.
Yes, absolutely awful is how I'd describe my experience.
Funny how it's only afterwards that you look back & realise how shit your care had been.

I remember the lovely community midwife listening to me rant on a few days after coming home.

She encouraged me to send a letter to the hospital & looked like she'd heard lots of similar stories!

My experience was horrific. At st Thomas's. My 2 day old couldn't feed. Born with low blood sugar which was initially corrected. She couldn't feed and the midwives went mad when Itold them yo say she had thrown up and wasn't feeding. They said it was a busy ward and I was taking up too much time. 'I had had enough support'. My daughters sugars plummeted fir several hours until she had a seizure. They still refused to help until my mother arrived. I was ripping my c section stitches to try to get help. When my mother screamed at them they realized how bad it was and she was administer to sbcu for 5 days with eye rolling and unrousable. I was bf her in addition to her nasal drip. During the whole 5 days I wasn't fed as missed meals. Although they knew I was a type 1 diabetic they made no provision as I was with my baby in such, they forgot to give me any post c section Meds and I was frequently locked out from the post natal ward for long periods of Time at 2 or 3 in morning as it was locked when I retuned from sbcu and no one gave a shit. My daughter didn't have brain damage thank god but I had to wait for her key milestones to know. The midwives were incompetent dangerous inadequate nurses whose conduct put my baby in sbcu. Me experience was the worst I have ever had. I wish it on no one

Turq obem was like an unreal Disney version and failed to prepare me for how horrendous the wards were. 40 hours labour then emcs. Wards as hot as hell and noisy as building sites; the lack of privacy and care whilst so vulnerable has stayed with me. I had DVT which I believe was caused by the spinal and have been in life changing pain ever since.

By Monday morning I was hallucinating and fatigued. I begged them to take my baby so I could sleep and they refused. A woman was co-sleeping and dropped her baby on the floor. Two staff ran over because they thought it was me. I was bfing but grabbed some prepared bottles and discharged myself. It was so painful that I had to hold onto the walls to get out of the hospital. By the time I got to the car I was shaking uncontrollably and couldn't see properly. I still feel very sad that a time I thought would be soft and comfortable felt like a war zone. Having a baby was the best thing I've ever done; being on the induction and post labour wards were the worst things I've ever gone through.

Dh of a f said of his wife's pleasant experience and care after a very fast and straightforward delivery 'if you are nice to the staff they are fine with you'. I hope he always feels this way (silly arse that he is). He slept in his wife's private room and she was home the next day.

I've been in hospital since and had a gynae procedure far less serious and painful than a cs. The date was like night and day. I was told to rest and had proper pain relief.

I had horrible experiences on the post natal ward too , once aftre an instrumental delivery with a lot of stiches and once aftre an emergency CS.

It didn't seem to be under staffing , the nurses spent a lot of time sitting at the desk having cups of tea and chatting. At about 9pm they had a tea party party with food too . Yet it was very hard to get them even to pass your baby for feeding

I got told not to buzz them as " breast fed babies don't need fed for the first 24 hours "

I asked one to turn the baby round to face me as his brother had a near miss cot death and was profoundly disabled and she refused .

I asked for water and was told I didn't need it as I was on a drip. Then I was shouted at because my urine output was low

I'd had nothing but fluids for 20 hours and when I came out of recovery I was told I couldn't have anything to eat because I wasn't there in time to order dinner.

The next day ( aftre nothing to eat for 30 hours ) , I was brought a dry white roll and a cup of tea ( I'm gluten free and can't eat bread ) . At lunch time I was told to go to teh next room, where I was given a plate of shredded lettuce and a small slice of ham. by the time Dh arrived I was nearly fainting with hunger . They could easily have found me some food but they clearly couldnt be arsed.

I was sitting in the bed in a pool of blood, soaking through the white blankets , while visitors were walking in the ward. I asked for help to change the bed and get changed and for them to pull round the curtains and they refused .

I was told I couldnt have a shower as I needed to have a visitor to watch my baby

They were all horrible, horrible people - not just to me but to other patients too .

Like others here, I don't talk about it to anyone in RL. I couldn't bear to be told that it didn't happen or that I'm exaggerating

Op that's awful, I was served all meals and drinks to my bed. Breast pump I washed ( you don't need to sterilise them) and the bottles were brand new each feed. Were you in England?

I forgot to say that once they gave baby to feed during the night , they didn't come to put him back down again and I was terrified I woudl fall asleep and drop him. So I'm just horrified to read several posters here saying this happened on the wards they were on

Soontobe -I was in scotland

Following labour of DD, which was without doubt the most terryfying experience of my life (lost 2 litres of blood and they refused an epidural, so had 2 x paracetamol and gas and air which was fucking useless), the midwives left me for 4 and a half hours before I eventually got taken to theTre for stitches for a third degree tear. Did not get a drop of water until I returned from theatre and never saw the midwife again once DD was delivered.
To be honest the whole set-up was worful, chronic lack of staff,zero compassion and midwives were clearly there as a weak form of crowd control until shit got serious and they thankfully buzzed for a doctor.
Horrific experience which has made me seriously consider if I could ever go through it sgain. 6 months on, I still have a few memory blanks, reguarly wake up re-lkving it and am so angry at the attitude and utter lack of humanity demonstrated. Thankfully DD was ok....

The post-natal ward was shocking, over-crowded, no help whatsoever and received no attention at all until I eventually discharged myself the same day, largely due to the fact the place was so hot I could not breathe. The state of the bathroom which they let me shower in solo was the final straw. Third world and utterly horrendous. I still get angry thinking about the place.

Awful. I was wheeled from recovery to ward in the early hours, curtains were pulled around me, DP was asked to leave. I was left holding baby, absolutely knackered, hadn't eaten in 24 hours, was totally numb below waist so couldn't move. The call button was out of reach so I lay there fighting sleep terrified I would drop baby. Meanwhile I could hear the mum in the opposite cubicle sobbing. When breakfast arrived it was placed at bottom of bed when I was asleep so when I woke I couldn't reach it. To top it all off the bed was completely soaked in my blood cos I couldn't change my pad. Luckily I was discharged after one night.

I'm in the process of making a formal complaint against my hospital - huge huge failures in care, including not dispensing drugs and signing the drug chart to say they had been given, then lying about it, disgusting lapses in hygiene, brutal and vicious midwives on postnatal and total lack of giving a shit. In the initial complaint, I said that that hospital was the worst place I have ever been, and spoiled the birth of my DD. When the (new) Matron in charge of inpatient care called to ask me to meet with her and discuss my complaint, she told me she cried reading my letter.

I will never ever forgive them as long as I live. Every midwife who works in that postnatal ward should be ashamed to look at herself in the mirror. Understaffed is no excuse for being a total cunt to vulnerable, hurting women. You can be busy and still be kind.

I do appreciate how short staffed post natal wards are, but my experiece was of hcas either chatting to each other or giving elaborate reasons why they couldn't help. They also seemed to have plenty of time to hang round the nurses station.

My instinct is to defend the NHS, but their rude, disinterested and abrasive approaches makes that impossible in these circumstances.

I would have appreciated some food, water and pain relief during the day I was there, but someone being nice to me would have been even better.

I hated being in after my dd's birth when she was on scbu for a week. A particular highlight was always trying to get back onto the ward in the middle of the night, hoping anyone would be bothered to open the security door. I had to go and feed every 3 hours day and night and remember just waiting hoping to get back into bed in time for one hour's sleep before getting up again. When we finally left I truely felt like I was breaking out of jail and dared not look back. Still now, 6 years later, I sometimes notice a smell which takes me back and gives me a dreadful feeling.

Mine was awful. The midwife on duty made an error which almost killed me and my son. Then on the postnatal wards I struggled to feed but was given little constructive help as the nursery nurses wafted off to help other mothers who could do it more easily so they could bask in the light of getting a baby to feed properly. I was put on a rota of an hour and a half pumping, an hour and a quarter of feeding and fifteen minutes sleep every 3 hours. It was the kind of sleep deprivation techniques the use in POW camps. I'd fall asleep then five minutes later there would be a midwife screaming in my face to wake up, calling me a bad mother and saying that I must have some sort of 'mental problem' which meant I was disgusted by breastfeeding (I don't).

All the women were spoken to like naughty schoolgirls, shouted at, belittled and in some cases I would say borderline bullied by the midwives. It was absolutely horrendous.

I agree totally with the OP when she says people disbelieve you; we have a culture which stifles criticism of the NHS as some sort of Sacred Cow which has allowed this situation to develop. Failings are hidden, hushed up and people who have distressing experiences ignored.

I don't think it can be blamed entirely on cuts either, the ward I was on was very well staffed and maintained. It was simply the attitude of the staff. It reminded me of the 'Stanford Prison' experiment where one group was told they were prison officers with authority over a group of prisoners and they quickly began to view the prisoners with contempt and abused the power they had over them.

The majority of the midwives seemed to regard mothers with something bordering on disgust and were combatative and aggressive. No matter how much money you throw at a problem that isn't going to change someone's attitude if they have a bad one.

It was a shock to leave behind the nurturing world of pregnancy and giving birth and to be then placed in the uncaring, vile postnatal ward. I really can't find anything positive to describe my experience and it really did lead me towards the dark path of PND.

My health visitor told me to make a complaint but tbh I was too busy trying to sort myself out than to bother. I always vowed if I were to have another baby I wouldn't return to this hospital. I didn't have anymore.

It was such a shock, it still makes me emotional 8 years later.

oh gosh some of these are so awful, I feel for all of you with the terrible experiences.

I got out of the post-natal ward in under 12 hours and that was long enough. The only thing that held up getting out sooner was finding someone to get the (unused) canula out of my hand, that took a good couple of hours. I was so glad that I'd brought plenty of labour snacks that were uneaten, as I was ravenous on waking and while I did go to try and make my own toast, there was no bread left. So mine are only minor moans, but I can totally understand a lot of what has been written.