AIBU to think that the majority of women in the UK get very good postnatal care

[Wheelsonthebus123]

Clearly the other thread demonstrates that for a significant number of women postnatal care is falling massively short of where it should be. My experience earlier this year and that of most women who I have spoken to who gave birth locally (in the same hospital as me ) was that of nothing but praise for the midwifes, doctors and service as a whole. I personally had planned to try for a home birth to avoid the hospital experience altogether but was transferred into hospital at the last minute and ended up on the postnatal ward for 3 nights, the first two of which were required medically. The third night I choose to stay in due to the high level of care and support I was receiving for help establishing breastfeeding which like for many had a problematic and rocky start. This was at a big city hospital with lots of patients not a small birthing centre. Anyone else think that the postnatal service they received personally was first class and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of care?

I didn't post on the other thread, because I thought my postnatal care was suboptimal rather than bad.

Ward hopelessly busy, and seemed understaffed, no baby care or breastfeeding support, no clean loo roll (had fallen on the floor), no choice of food depending on when you arrived on the ward. MW not turning up for home visit when she said she would (not late, different day). And the difficulty of getting anyone to take a particular medical issue seriously, because they didn't expect us (from on paper?) to have any issues.

Yes, many of the individual staff were great. But the service wasn't.

Ime poor care stems from overworked staff, who are trying their best to provide any care at all, let alone the gold standard.

People who choose to stay in hospital when they're fit for discharge are putting more strain on these limited services and staff. and it's not uncommon, I've had many acquaintances actually planning on staying x days, or a week. You have your district m/w and hv to help once you're discharged medically. As do people who expect staff to bring the breakfast in bed when they're capable (and it would benefit them to get out of bed) of doing it themselves.

You may have been lucky and happened on a quiet week. When you are one of 4 midwives on a full 32 bed ward (and one of those 4 has to admit and care for elective sections) then you worry about medical needs first, and those who stay because they want to second.

I agree with Micah on this one, although I found at the hospital I was at the midwives ignored the medical notes of the patient stating they needed a longer time until discharge due to a medical condition that needed monitoring and went by what they could see. Just as well in both cases I'm aware of the patients had partners to stick up for them as both women ended up rather ill 24 hours later . The difference in care was also noticeable between the first 24 hours when they were 'just taking up a bed' and after.

I'd say I had good antenatal and during birth care.

Postnatal experience was a bit rubbish, I do think it's set up to be as unpleasant to encourage you to discharge yourself asap. I think after giving birth you're knackered and need a bit of TLC. Instead you get flung in the deep end with minimal pain management and needing to push for basics like clean sheets. It's no wonder the early days are often so crap when you start off in a fug of exhaustion from which you're never given a chance to recover.

I had a traumatic birth at kings. Baby had to be resuscitated. My experiences on the post natal ward were superb. The staff at kings not only saved my daughter's life, they then reassured me as I learnt to breast feed over the next 3 days, took time to explain things to me, answered the bell when I called them, watched the baby when I showered. Let me sleep when I needed it. And showed practical compassion when my husband received a call telling him his father had unexpectedly died.

Yes the ward was noisy and full of bustle, but I was able to get some sleep, and the staff certainty did nurse me.

thank you to the staff at kings.

Mine was patchy. Some bits fine, some not so much. I am quite used to hospital wards so the noise. Sleep. Privacy stuff was no surprise and no problem. When I was on the morphine though they put the baby on me to feed and the next thing I new they were opening the curtain and it was morning. So baby had been at my breast with me basically unconscious overnight. I was startled when I woke and said what if the baby had fallen off? Could easily have happened surely. Woman just shrugged. I don't think that happening was quite right though was it?

Other bits and bobs were hit and miss. Birth itself was not great.

Did you intend to sound so dismissive of other women's poor, even appalling experiences, OP?

I've found that it really is area/hospital dependant. In parts of London for example, the birth rate is so high, that hospitals just cannot meet the needs of patients, and unfortunately that is even the case in the Delivery wards. My own experience with DC2 was having to wait in the waiting area outside the maternity ward for an hour before the midwife could even check me. Then when I eventually got to the maternity ward, there was no form of pain control whatsoever with just two midwives caring for 5 women. Communication with the midwives in the delivery ward was terrible, they didn't even inform midwives in maternity when beds were free so patients could be taken up to the delivery ward.
My waters broken and felt the urge to push in maternity, and was immediately rushed up to delivery, when midwives were happy to inform us of a couple of empty rooms .
All this of course happened with staff shortages.
I felt cheated as I couldn't have even been offered pain relief. Several mums who attended the same hospital had the same problem of being made to wait ages just for a bed and check up.

So while I don't blame the staff, I think they are terribly understaffed and without proper management.

Apologies for lack of proper paragraphs should have previewed!

For a free service i think it is amazing.

It isn't free! I get really annoyed by comments like this.

If it's good deal for the majority of the population, then logically it must be a bad deal for the rest, the minority with high incomes from whom the bulk of tax revenue comes.

I had good care on the postnatal ward (Glasgow, SGH). They were obviously busy, but I felt looked after well all the same - lots of bf support, decent and prompt pain relief, never had to wait more than a minute or two for someone to pass me my baby when I couldn't reach her myself (EMCS) and buzzed.

But, I know a lot of people who had a really rough time too, some of them in a different PN ward of the same hospital. So I don't feel at all like my experience was the one the majority of women get.

Nah, can't really agree. Like a lot of women who have medically easy births, we were basically ignored both before and after labour (I will say the MW who came in to see what all the noise was and ended up delivering DD3 was lovely). Perfectly acceptable care, but hardly first class. And they missed DD3's tongue tie in the paed check they insisted we had to hang around overnight for.

We did get toast with Marmite and real butter tho. Which was nice

Have no idea what the majority of women receive. All I know is that mine was dreadful.

It was terrible for me both times, really awful and at times I would actually go as far as to call it bullying. I'm glad to see so many positive experiences on here but I wish I had received good care too.

OP - why did you feel the need to start another thread? I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Very badly judged imo - you've come across as tactless and insensitive at best, smug and self-congratulating at worst.

I remember perfectly well when I was on the pregnancy boards looking for advice on which London hospital to give birth at, virtually everyone said the postnatal care was almost uniformly poor, so I certainly don't think that bad postnatal care only impacts on a tiny minority.

Poor form, this thread.

My experience was traumatic and kickstarted my pnd.

While this is not a UK experience, years ago, I volunteered in a patient support organisation and there were many awful examples of poor care in maternity patients, truly awful. Naturally we did not get too many examples of the warm caring, high quality experience other women undoubtedly experienced as well.

I agree that highlighting and rewarding great care is important, particularly to boost the morale of people working tirelessly in these sectors.

What I do wonder is why do it when the other thread is running still OP? to me it shows a lack of empathy and a willingness to dismiss other people's experiences and for that yabu IMO. In fact in the organisation I worked for we got a lot of similar comments from people within the health service and politician's attempting to discredit women 'sure what is she complaining about everyone I know had great care' implying the person was just being a whinger.

I had a horrendous post natal experience with DD and a great one with DS. Both born in the same hospital. When I say horrendous, I don't just mean that the ward was busy and tired, I mean that they failed at even a basic level of care and at least one midwife was incredibly rude. Another midwife ended up making a formal complaint on my behalf.

I'm sure you didn't mean to cause offense but this thread does read a bit like minimising negative experiences or trying to imply that people who were unhappy merely had unreasonable expectations. Very glad to hear that so many people had a good experience though!

My phone just ate my explanatory post twice and I can't write it again because trying to answer such a crass thread properly is making me feel pretty angry. Congratulations OP, you're a champ, pat on the back, lovely delivery? Good on you! Try to show some sensitivity or imagination and recognise that plenty of women have bad birth/postnatal experiences (i'm one). YABVU.

I've been following the other thread with interest because it's comforting to know others had similarly bad experiences. No-one talks about this stuff at baby groups ime.

This is a bit like someone posting in relationships saying "my husband is lovely and so are my friends'. Does domestic violence really happen? Abusive relationships must be pretty rare." Some things are taboo in our society. Just because they don't get talked about don't mean they aren't happening with some frequency.

I had a very indifferent care in the postnatal ward. They simply didn't care what happened to you. There was no warmth or acknowledgement of this huge event in people's lives. I think maybe midwives have to desensitise themselves to human suffering during labour so they can't "switch it back on" easily. I haven't heard many happy stories about postnatal care but I did hear a few so it's possible. Postnatal care is also considered a drain on hospital finances so maybe the attitude references management point of view.

I saw this thread started this morning and I thought I would have a nice long think about whether my initial anger about it was misplaced.

I still feel pissed off.

It's a ridiculous attempt to invalidate the real, lived experiences of women who have had bloody appalling medical care.

Awful thread. Just awful.