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.

I wish the Health Secretary could read this thread

Sounds like they need a good matron.
Maybe my labour mw was usually on the ward after all it was a BH.

My first baby was stillborn at 37 weeks and looking back my midwives were very insensitive, one getting impatient with me because i was too exhausted to push and another telling me how she had just got back off maternity leave and how she had her baby last year bla bla bla.

My first experience with ds1 was so bad I still cant really talk about it :(
It took me 5 years to pluck up the courage to try again and I was determined I wanted a home birth.
Sadly I went overdue, was anaemic and had spd so I had to go to hospital - a different one!
I left after 8 hours - there was no way I was staying on a postnatal ward.

I went home out of desperation less than 48 hours after a cs for twins as I really needed support from family and DH. Initially still had catheter in and in bed and was told 'well you've missed breakfast now" (I don't know how I was expected to get it) I hadn't eaten since the previous afternoon. One kind midwife, who I am still grateful to, helped with one of the twins with the night feeds (I was mixed feeding), but otherwise it was awful.

And still managed to be badgered by bounty!

Some of the midwives and staff were lovely and a credit to the NHS but others were clearly in the wrong vocation.

I think things have got worse with time.

I had natural births with my first 2 DCs , 12 and 10 years ago and the care from beginning to end was faultless. With DC3 I had an emergency section 6weeks early and was very ill and in HDU, again, care was very good.

However for DC4 and 5, I had ELCS and the post natal care was non-existent. This was 4 and 2 years ago. Like you OP, my DH was at home looking after other DC as we have no other help so I was basically on my own. It seemed because they were my 4th and 5th DCs I knew what I was doing and was left to get on with it. All I wanted was a smile / kind word. I signed myself out early as it was just so awful and lonely.

So sad to hear others suffer like this but comforting to know I am not the only one as you start to doubt things could really be that awful in this day and age.

"Badvocinapeartree", I'd wanted a home birth too with my daughter after a dreadful time in the hospital when I had my son.
Like you I went overdue and had to be induced then had an absolutely horrific experience.
I complained to the hospital and they admitted they were in the wrong and apologised and said they were going to change a lot of thing- that was of no help to me though. I'm still left a wreck.
I missed the first year of my daughters life as I was so deeply depressed and didn't enjoy her.

Blue :(
I ended up with pnd after my eldest son was born.
It was a direct consequence of the after care - or rather lack of - that we received.
I was sent home with a 4.5lb jaundiced baby who wasn't feeding.
I had retained placenta.
It was dreadful.
The "nurses" were nasty and rude. The toilets were indescribable. The food was so poor I refused to eat it. (Half a curled up sandwich and 3 chips?)
Myself and another woman had to go to the aid of a woman on our ward who collapsed...nurses at the station reading heat.
I lost so much respect for the NHS then...and this was 11.5 years ago.
God knows what it's like now :(

I had a straightforward birth but my experience on the post natal ward has made me opt for home birth this time. I wish I'd had the confidence to discharge myself. It was a really horrible place to be. The food was good though.

I'm so shocked how many horrible experiences there are!
I thought mine (which is not that bad at all compared to some others) was a rare case of being unlucky...

I had my DS in St Thomas' in 2012 and I have to say the midwife and staff at the birth centre were great, but not so in the post natal ward.
I had 30h labour followed by 2 failed ventouse attempts and then an EMCS at 7pm, by the time I was taken to the post natal ward DH was asked to leave (visiting hours over) and I was supposed to get some pain relief as epidural was wearing off (that's what the recovery staff told me)
I got no proper pain relief for hours and spent the night crying in pain, buzzed several times, even considered phoning 999 in desperation...
The midwives that finally turned up were very dismissive and rude, they finally offered paracetamol - I HAVE JUST HAD MY ABDOMEN CUT OPEN, IT'S NOT A HEADACHE!! It felt like being ripped apart.
At one point they told me I should have gone private if I couldn't deal with it
Finally I got pain relief at 4am, after I guess they realised I won't give up buzzing and just "deal with it"
I complained to the consultant the next day and they seemed to have taken it seriously, i didn't take it any further as thankfully didn't see these two again and I just wanted to put it behind me.

I am pregnant now and dreading the post natal ward, but this time I'm at least mentally prepared, also it will be ELCS, so I won't (hopefully) have 30hrs of labour and tiredness etc to deal with as well.

Long time lurker but had to come out of hiding for this. In a strange way this thread has been the best therapy for something that I still find difficult to even think about without feeling panicky and angry. 2 years ago I had my son. Traumatic birth - (2 bouts of heart failure for me, broken shoulder for my son) - but nothing compared to the hell-hole that was the post natal ward. After having been shipped back from a different hospital and having just about recovered from a GA and going into heart failure I was left to cope alone as FTM with a screaming child on a ward with women who were openly weeping with fear and pain. It was honestly the most frightened I have ever been in my life. I couldn't get out of bed an no one would help me with getting my son to help me feed him. I came out of there a shell of a women - and that is no exaggeration. I spent 6 months on anti depressants and it took me two years up properly bond with my son because I felt like my time there had required me to put a glass wall between me and my son just to survive. Horrific.

I had an episiotomy and 4th degree tears followed by an hour and a half being sewn up in surgery. When my catheter was removed on the postnatal ward it quickly became apparent I had urinary incontinence. I spent seven days in hospital while they tried unsuccessfully to get my bladder working again.

About day two I was asked if I'd been looking after my baby by myself. (Funny as they don't give you an option!) They were surprised to learn that I had because my blood results showed that I shouldn't be capable of standing... and they insisted I had a blood transfusion. It seems I'd lost a lot more blood than they had "guesstimated".

Not one person on the ward showed me any sympathy or concern and it was only when I broke down and started sobbing uncontrollably that I was taken to a side ward. Even then it was clear that they thought I was a pain.

I will never forget their total lack of care and it still upsets me to this day.

I should add that 6 months after the birth I did complain.

Have any/some/all of you tried going directly to the newspapers with these stories? if you Google "newspaper contact story" loads of results come up.

These stories have utterly horrified me, and I cant see why they aren't dramatic enough for a newspaper to whip up a storm with them.

Seems like the only times things really change is when they get out into the public media and the government is forced to do something about it.

Who wants to be a Daily Mail sad face?

Perhaps as a profession, midwives would be better placed just to do deliveries and the more straightforward post natal care and people who've had sections, complicated or instrumental deliveries should be cared for by nurses. It sounds as though midwives aren't interested in nursing these post op women

I totally agree, I think it would help. These stories are scandalous.

In France my SILs stayed in for 5 days after straightforward natural births. They had private rooms and baths, BF counselors and physio visits, the nurses took the babies at night so they could sleep. Then there was me in London, at home 36 hours after EMCS because I hadn't slept in 5 days and couldn't safely take care of my son by myself one more night. No one in France can believe my stories.

I would love to see Panorama or somebody tackle this subject, it's the only way things will ever change.

JadedAngel your 5 days on the PN ward at St Thomas' in London in 2009 sound disturbingly similar to mine in 2004 - makes me very angry that nothing improved in the intervening 5 years!

I think the reason why few mums complain and the hospitals get away with it is because no one is in the right frame of mind to complain at that time.

I am the sort of person who will not accept such awful conditions in my day to day life. But after 3 nights with no sleep, terrible pain, trying to look after my baby, and being told by midwives how lucky I am to have a healthy baby, I was not thinking straight and not in the right mindset to complain. I thought that what I was going through on the ward was 'normal'.

Then, when home, there are weeks/months of not sleeping and coping with crying, vomiting baby etc, and just getting on with your life, so making official complaints to the hospital is the last thing on your mind!

I think some of the breastfeeding mentalists should read this thread, twice through! The amount of pressure and belittling that goes on!

Badvocinapeartree-I too lost respect for the NHS. My experience was almost 6 years ago. When I went to complain, a consultant obstetrician told me that sometimes when women say they're in pain it's hard to judge how much pain they're in so sometimes they carry on.
I told him that if someone is screaming stop to an invasive medical procedure that isn't being carried out for a life threatening reason- then they should damn well stop!

stormtreader - I feel the same as others who have said they feel too humiliated to consider contacting a newspaper.
I could never do that.
I was humiliated enough throughout the experience and papers always like to have an accompanying photo. I don't want everyone to know what they did to me.

As a profession, MW should be phased out and replaced by nurse practitioner/doctors. IME, MW are not skilled enough to provide nursing care. Many are not fit for purpose.

I was told by the hospital to complain about the mw and HV.
The mw and HV told me to complain about the hospital.
Tbh by day 4 and with ds1 rushed back to hospital and being fed by HG tube it complaining was the last thing on my mind.

I totally understand why people want to just put these awful experiences behind them and try and get on with their lives.

I will say that it seems similar to me to the care homes scandal that kicked up a while ago, it took someone finally willing to show film footage of their beloved mum being belittled, distressed and abused by staff before anything was done.

It sounds overly dramatic but I truly believe that evil and abuse thrives in the dark, they take the shame they should be feeling and shove it onto the women they are abusing. I've never heard worse abuse stories anywhere than I've heard here, my heart really honestly breaks for all of you, animals should be treated better than you all were.

I would have complained, but lost total faith in the complaints procedure having made one about the same hospital and my care with my multiple miscarriages. And post birth, I didn't have headspace for it either