AIBU to think that midwives should be able to give appointment times

[SweetPeaSoup]

...even if they have to cancel them at the last minute due to being needed elsewhere?

I'm booked for a home birth in May, and before being handed over to the home birth team, the midwife I was seeing at the surgery told me that home birth midwife appointments (you know, for blood pressure / wee test etc etc) would be on Saturdays.

I requested an appointment for my next check and I've now been told that they don't give appointment times because it depends on their workloads on the day, and asked whether I could be available on a weekday (I work full time).

I know that employers have to give reasonable time off for antenatal appointments (and mine would without question), but surely it's not reasonable for me to be absent for an entire day on the off-chance that I might get to see a midwife? Also, I'm running out of time before baby arrives - I don't have entire weekend days that I can just write off either.

AIBU to want an appointment time, even if it has to be broken by a call-out? My DH thinks that I shouldn't ask again for a specific time, and instead just agree to wait around for a whole day for every appointment 'to avoid making an enemy of a midwife'. It may be my hormones, but I don't think it's reasonable.

All my midwife appointments were at the gp surgery with a specific appointment time. Sometimes these were late as a routine appt might flag something that needed further assessment etc, but they usually ran to time.

I don't know if you're doing a different process due to the home birth but that's how it worked for me.

YABU
They will have many appointments on the day and will work out the route that morning.

You could ring in the morning to find out an approximate time but appointments may run over . Women have questions . You wouldn't like it if they got to you did the checklist then left because they had to get to the next appointment at a certain time.

Also they may get called to a home birth or an emergency .
You also wouldn't like it if they had to leave your home birth because they had told someone that they would be with them at a certain time .
YABU.

I used One to One Midwives for my last birth (NHS funded) and this was how they work. I would get an 'appointment' time but it would usually be 1-2 hours out at least! It didn't bother me as I work at home one day a week anyway and my midwife would call or text a rough time on the day, but YANBU to want a fixed-ish time. Would they not let you have first slot of the day (or last slot if they work late and you could leave work early?). It is a pain, but it was worth it to me to have continuity of care.

You make it sound like she's doing it just to put you out.

She's not , she's probably just as stressed out as you are about it !

I am also with One to One for a homebirth & my midwife will give me a time but generally doesn't make it! Only one appointment has been totally re arranged because she was at a homebirth. Doesn't bother me as I only work very part time & have a flexible schedule.

I don't think you're unreasonable at all. Ime a lot of ante natal stuff is done like this as if your time is far less important than theirs. And yes, an employer has to give you paid time off but it isn't reasonable for hospitals and midwives to treat that like a green light to keep you off for long periods just because it suits them. And if you dare to object they bring out the guilt about how important it is for your baby.

That's really odd. I'm booked for a home birth and it's the same community midwives that you see at the GPs surgery for your appts.so occasionally they come out to the house but most of the time you see them with an alloted time at the surgery. Usually runs over but I know my midwife is lovely and shows lots of interest so generally slips over her time. I just wait patiently.

If come out to the house it's a two hour window. They'll usually call if they are going to be late.

This sounds overly dramatic from your midwives, guys. In New Zealand we have continuity of care, and every midwife has a caseload of about 50 women a year. We can get called for births and emergencies literally any time, and we do antenatal, postnatal clinics and of course attend births. I still manage to hold two half-day clinics a week and very rarely have to miss one. When I have to, I call my backup midwife so she covers the clinic, and nobody has to cancel an appointment. Every other midwife I know manages like this, and many have higher caseloads than me.

I think it is taking the mickey to tell a working person that an appointment can happen any time from 8 am to basically 8 pm.

I always had timed appointments, including my home visit for my home birth which they discussed when would be convenient before setting. Although it was all done by community midwives mostly at GP surgery not a separate team.

Is this because the midwives are coming to your house to do the checks? Are these same midwives who also visit to check on mum's and babies just discharged from hospital, or the ones who'll actually be there for the birth?

If they're fitting you in on a list of home visits / possible home births, I can see why they might not feel able to give you an appointment time, but this would really annoy me and stress me out if it meant I was having to skip work and mess my employer around for an appointment that might not even happen.

I always had appointment times for antenatal checks but then I was seeing the midwife in the GP surgery. Is it possible for you to ask if you can get the routine checks done at a GP surgery where they're more likely to be able to offer you an appointment time?

I had home births and had planned appointments at the surgery with a specific time. The only one at home was the birth plan appointment and that was at the weekend. I was told 'morning' or 'afternoon' for that one.

I worked full time with first pregnancy and asked for the first appointment of the day, at the surgery. So, I might end up waiting a bit - say 9.15 for an originally 8.30 appointment - but I'd know I'd be at work by mid-morning at the latest.

I NEVER agreed to home visits for this reason.

If they were anything like the home birth community midwives I had I can completely understand it. They worked in x2 teams of three and if two women happened to be in labour at once more routine appointments were postponed or fitted round other more urgent appointments. I understood that when I was in labour I would be the urgent/important appointment but that at other times a bit of flexibility was allowed.

I can't remember it being a big issue. I am sure they used to phone or text before coming to check that I was nearby/available and if not we arranged another more convenient time.

Your employer is obliged to give you time off for such visits so I think YABU. The benefits of continuity of care from home birth community midwives far, far outweigh the down side. Also if it is anything like where I live you are incredibly lucky to be booked in with them.

Are you in the UK OP? I find this odd.

I was preg. last year and all of my appointments during pregnancy what few of them you get these days were at a prearranged time, on the one specific morning per week when the MW took over a consulting room at the GP surgery. Wednesday mornings, IIRC.

There was always the provisio that if the MW had to be elsewhere that morning due to an emergency or whatever then the GP receptionist would just ring and cancel her appt's.

Strange that she would be rushing around doing antenatal visits at home. The only time she came to me for an appt. was for to perform a sweep right at the end of my preg.

this MW was part of the home birth team too.

You cant have it both ways. Its done this way to facilitate home births, which is what you want. If you want exact timings and appts you can have a hospital birth and regular midwife clinics.

madreloco what are you talking about? It's obvious that a fair few of us opt for home births and attend midwife clinics and hospital appointments like everyone else. It's homeBIRTH not home ante-natal care.

YANBU, but if this is what your local service offers then you can either choose to use it as it is, or pay privately.

I think we are really lucky to have the choice we have with maternity care, pregnancy is not an illness it's a choice, yet we still get free care. Just be thankful for that.

We can't give times for home visits; if you want a time you have to come into clinic.

This is because nobody knows how long a visit will be. If it's post-natal there may be feeding issues; we have to observe a feed, we might have to give a show bath, upset parents, language barriers. Any number of reasons you can't get a time.
We have to travel between appointments. We don't know where from/to until that morning. It could take 1.5 hours behind a tractor to get to you. It might be next door to our last visit.
The MW might have to travel to a home birth. That can take 2-12 hours.

Add to that understaffing and I think YAB a bit U.

I'm sure your weekends are terribly precious, as they are to everyone, but it's one day. For the health of you and your baby.

It's rather crass to get petulant about it not being on your exacting terms.

sorry but i dont see why you should be told you need to take an entire day off work that is unreasonable they could at least say after 12? how frustrating!

Eponas it's not that odd really - I am in the UK and this was how my ante natal care was given. The same midwives who do your ante natal care also deliver your baby at home and do post natal checks. Everything is done by the midwife visiting you at home including blood tests, urine checks and all routine appointments unless there is a need (or preference by the mother) to go to hospital - I was offered a hospital birth or a home birth and was offered a choice of hospital post natal checks for baby or checks done at home by a midwife trained to offer them. The only thing I had to attend clinics for was scans (not a hospital but a community medical clinic) and the newborn hearing test (only offered in hospital). There was a drop-in clinic (which covered quite a wide area) if you wanted to go and see a midwife there and then (e.g. if you were worried about something and your own allocated midwife couldn't come out to you) but otherwise there was no 'base' for the midwives so no actual clinic setting for routine appointments. It does happen!

Could u ask to be seen in surgery by a different Mw just for your check ups?

50 women a year in NZ. That sounds like crazy small numbers - one a week??

YABU.

Uterus I think you paint a rather light picture of how hard it is being a midwife at the moment.