To call up maternity unit and let them hear the meltdown they've just caused my wife.

[MissusWrex]

Ok well I wouldn't really do that but am feeling very angry right now.

This is my other half's account. She has autism spectrum disorder and dyspraxia.

We had a cesarean section booked for this Thursday. This morning we recieved a call asking us if we could move it up to tomorrow.

We had a discussion about it, checked whether we could change childcare etc. and my wife agreed after she'd worked it through in her head.

We got everything packed and ready. Sat down five minutes ago and received another phone call.

Our appointment had to get changed to Friday. We were given no choice about this, couldn't change back to our original date. Just a sorry, it's got to be Friday now.

We can't get childcare for Friday though I appreciate this isn't the hospitals problem.

What I am very angry about though is that now my heavily pregnant wife is having the mother of all meltdowns upstairs. She is screaming, banging around and I'm just praying she isn't hurting herself. I can't restrain her obviously and she is immensely strong during these episodes which are actually exceptionally rare these days.

It has been a difficult and complicated pregnancy.

AIBU in thinking that maybe they should have just given a little extra consideration given her disability and not changed dates twice in the space of a few hours?

Should I call PALS, I just want to let someone know what this has caused.

I absolutely understand emergencies come first, I just feel the actual changing around should have been handled differently if possible.

While I get that, and in your case it might have been better if they'd waited longer and told you later on this evening rather than two changes in a few hours, for most people, more notice would be preferable. If they'd waited a few hours, you'd have made plans to accommodate the new plan - and then had it changed again.

Of course it would have been better to just move you to Friday but presumably when they offered you yesterday, they didn't realise it'd need to be moved again.

I'm glad your wife has calmed down, and that SS are supportive. To be honest, I'd treat this as c'est la vie for now and focus on getting through the rest of the week. You can complain if you feel you need too after the birth, but I expect it'll fade in importance.

Red tooth brush. Obviously. But I'm guessing she has support now? And it still resorted in her husband thinking she may hurt herself

I have posted earlier on about the thread about my wife being a very good mother and that meltdowns on this scale are extremely rare. I have only seen three in all the years I have known her.

There are no concerns about her ability to cope with children, especially eith all the support we have around us. I am always here so when it gets too much she always gets the chance to go and wind down before a shutdown happens most of the time.

She is just very vulnerable at the minute and already under a lot of stress with the pregnancy. I just felt it could have been handled in a better way which I will mention to PALS, not that the appointment should never be changed.

Again just to reiterate, my wife is a good mum and very able with support and planning to mainly cope with all the things that brings.

I'm a nurse. I do think you should call. Just explain the chain of events and the impact on your wife. If they can't do anything, they'll apologise. But at the very least they can asterisk your wife's name to make sure she's the last routine case to be cancelled if cancellations are necessary.

They didn't offer yesterday. Both changes were made today.

This morning they moved it to Wednesday after we called them back an hour later, then a few hours after called us to say it had to be Friday now.

Yes I was concerned wife may hurt herself during her meltdown as when it happens it is extremely unpredictable and she has badly bitten her hands/ pulled hair out in the past.

Might be an idea to put your energy in to thinking out a strategy that will help her cope, if she all ready for theatre on Friday and an emergency crops up then- if she has a melt down in the hospital it could be difficult for all concerned.

I would get her to hospital ASAP as that kind of behaviour would not be good for the baby

whois

If you read the OP's posts, you will see that the family are supported by a social worker already.

Agree with Lougle. They haven't done this to deliberately piss you off and saying "listen to how upset my wife is" just makes you sound like a pair of drama queens. Calmly explaining the situation will achieve much more.

In my experience the NHS doesn't deal with ASD particularly well. There's very little understanding but I appreciate probably very little training either.

I would dicuss with PALS. If nothing else it could prompt them to think about how they would deal with this in the future.

Cote I didn't claim any such understanding. My point was rather that any patient should have had the courtesy of this, and that all the posts telling the OP to STFU and be grateful are going too far in their defence of medical staff. I'm quite prepared to believe that the patient in this case should have had even more consideration and has been let down.

Sorry if I've worded that wrong earlier, we don't have a social worker.

Social services were I assume told about us after a visit to the hospital with dd about a year ago. She had a chest infection but my wife's ASD was brought up and not long after we received a phone call to see how we were.

A woman came to the house and had a chat with us. We explained the difficulties that we have and how we deal with them and she told us she was quite happy that we were fine, she just told us to call them if we need any support.

2rebecca I did say in my op that actually I wouldn't do that of course but that I was angry.

I don't mind being called a drama queen, maybe I am being I don't know. But I would certainly hope any medical professional wouldn't assume my autistic wife was being a drama queen for having a meltdown.

In most daily situations for us (not saying that is the case for all people with autism) meltdowns and shutdowns have obvious warning signs which means they can be headed off or managed better.

This was handled in a way that made it impossible to do that I felt.

Firstly, can I say that I am sorry your wife has been so upset. It must be distressing seeing her like that, and very distressing for her to feel that way.

I work in obstetrics so may be able to offer some potential explanations. It is not uncommon for the lists to get changed at short notice and the vast majority of the time that is due to unforeseeable circumstances. It could be that the medical needs of other patients required changes to be made to the list, or it could be staff illness/absence or problems with theatre capacity. Your wife's ASD, whilst certainly needing to be taken into account, does not mean she can be exempted from changes if another patent's medical needs take greater priority. I think you would expect the same if it was your wife's needs causing others to be changed. It is pretty unusual for the consultant to phone a patient to inform them of changes to the theatre list, in my experience, so perhaps some consideration was given.

It may also be the case that something changed again after the initial change of date was agreed- this has happened to me recently. We had made changes to the elective list for clinical reasons and contacted the patients to let them know, only for something else to crop up and further changes were needed. As you would have been going in tomorrow, it is possible someone who needs done as a priority (but not an emergency section to be done immediately) has come in/been seen in clinic and has been put on the list as she has taken priority over your wife based on clinical need and this had led to your DW being moved again.

Alternatively, perhaps a genuine mistake was made by the first consultant who called to rearrange the date- maybe he offered the wrong day or put you onto an already full list. Mistakes happen, and I don't think it would be done deliberately. Of course, if it was an error then an apology would have been in order.

I don't think "letting them hear your the meltdown they've caused" will be very productive in either circumstance. And unless you spoke to the consultant who arranged it, you'll just be having a go at someone who had nothing to do with the situation, and who has no power to change anything/issue any sort of formal apology which seems pretty pointless.

If you really feel the need to make a complaint, then do so. You might get an apology, but I doubt it would prevent your wife or someone in her situation having their date moved. If it was a genuine error then it could still happen and no amount of "systemic changes" can prevent human errors occurring on occasion. If something unavoidable changed between the time the initial change was agreed and you getting the second call it would still be unlikely that the situation could be avoided.

Think yourself lucky that you have the choice to choose not to have meltdowns Flowersandshit. The wife of the OP doesn't have that luxury.

Mental health conditions are not comparable to ASD.

It is your wife's medical condition that has caused the meltdown so it's not the responsibility of the hospital. Unfortunately date changes happen. Is having another child not a bigger change than a change in the dat,e of it being born, could it be that which is causing her to have the meltdown ?

Thank you for your concern over our daughter.

Our daughter has never seen her mum have a meltdown. As explained before it's happened three times in the last twelve years. It is much more usual for her to have a 'shut down' which I can assure you doesn't scare anyone as my wife will often take herself off somewhere to be alone.

Lucklily health professionals and social services also agree that there is no danger or damage being done to our child.

And I'm sure she would love to have the choice whether or not she 'behaves' like that.

OP you don't have to justify yourself there.

Come off it, mouldy, the fact that a woman has a medical condition is absolutely something a hospital should take into account. If a woman dies because the hospital hasn't dealt with her pre-eclampsia, would you say "It's your wife's medical condition that caused her death so it's not the responsibility of the hospital"? The fact that it's a mental health condition rather than a physical condition makes no difference whatsoever.

The lady has had 8 months to plan for this child. She knows what's coming, understands the changes and has a good support system. It's an anticipated change in their lives.

Changing dates twice in a short amount of time isn't an anticipated change and she wasn't given enough time to process the first change before being informed of the second (im assuming), which is what caused her meltdown.

You can't compare parenting to a situation like today.

The ignorance surrounding ASD is shocking.

Thank you pp, yes it's hard to stop justifying yourself once you get going

Obliviated yes that is exactly the situation we found ourselves in today.