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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have wanted more than toast?

400 replies

Womenareliketeabags · 01/10/2016 17:17

First time posting in AIBU so please be kind and I'm prepared to accept I am.

A few weeks ago I had a planned home birth, birth went well until the placenta was delivered at which point I had a large haemorrhage and was rushed to the nearest labour ward in an ambulance. By the time I had been sorted and I got my coffee and toast it was 01.30am and I hadn't eaten since lunch at 12.30pmish so I was very very hungry! Coffee and toast was lovely. However it did not ease my hunger, the kind midwife offered to see if they had a spare sandwich lying around, there wasn't so she made me some more toast. As I had been rushed in I didn't have my purse and my hospital bag only had very basic stuff, was middle of the night and DH had left at this point so I had no way of getting food from else where.

AIBU to think that labour wards should be able to access food for women at all hours of the day and night?

OP posts:
Ninasimoneinthemorning · 03/10/2016 10:07

I also thinks is really sad that other women expect other women just to STFU because they themselves had a 'bad' experience.

Labour brings out the worst of some people on here.

AutumnMadness · 03/10/2016 10:08

Same experience here. I was in labour on the ward for over 24 hours, with no food during this time, just some drink. Had an emergency c-section at 6 pm, then given two pieces of toast at around 7 pm as "dinner time was over and there was nothing else". I had some snacks in my bag, but did not pack much as this was my first birth and I did not realise how dire food provision would be. So I was faced with a further 12 hours on top of the previous 24 until breakfast without any proper food. How a woman who has just been through hell and back expected to recover on two pieces of toast in 36 hours, I don't know. And it's not like I could go get food outside myself as it was the middle of the night, my DH was sent home, I was paralised from the waste down from the epidural and could not lift my new baby. Surely this is a human right violation.

LineyReborn · 03/10/2016 10:13

It's awful, I agree, that women are expected by some on here to accept sub-standard care on maternity wards that they wouldn't be expected to endure on medical wards, even when they are actual medical patients on the maternity wards.

And the allegations hurled at those wanting better care are fucking bizarre, like not caring enough about your baby. I think giving a shit about nutrition when breastfeeding is, actually, caring about your baby.

AutumnMadness · 03/10/2016 10:16

I also find it very sad how so many women are prepared to accept atrocious treatment of themselves as normal. This of course is an issue not just in post-birth NHS treatment, but in life in general. Sexism in ingrained in all of us.

LineyReborn · 03/10/2016 10:16

It's such a double standard. My dad had a number of elective operations in hospital over the years, and he was never, ever expected to pack a holdall full of food. The nursing staff would provide him with nutrition, night and day, as required.

PerspicaciaTick · 03/10/2016 10:20

TBH though, if you've had surgery you don't normally expect to eat as soon as you leave recovery. IME I've been told not to eat after surgery because of the risk of vomiting, so I just waited for the next scheduled meal time.

ScoopskiPotato · 03/10/2016 10:20

When dd was delivered they brought the tea and toast in. Dh dived on it immediately and the HCA was furious. They brought more in and when he went to take more the mw slapped his hand away. :o dh has no shame. When ds was born I had to stay in longer than anticipated. Dh brought in 2 big plates of food (chicken rice bread sauce etc)The woman across said how nice it smelled so he gave his to her. So he is kind really.

AutumnMadness · 03/10/2016 10:28

PerspicaciaTick, you have a point, but regular surgery patients are not expected to use their bodies to sustain another human being immediately after surgery. Nor are they regularly required to fast for 24 hours prior to their surgery.

curlilox · 03/10/2016 10:34

Back in 1981 I went in hospital on a Thursday to be induced on Friday morning, but my waters broke in the night. I was in labour all day, but they had to do a c section at 1 30 Saturday morning with an epidural. I haemhorraged about 3 in the morning and was taken (unconscious) back to labour ward, had to have transfusion. I was eventually taken back to the main ward, but at lunchtime I was not allowed anything, as the nurse reckoned I had had an anaesthetic. I was finally allowed a little rice pudding at teatime. Didn't get any proper food until Sunday breakfast! Last meal had been Thursday evening.

Stopyourhavering · 03/10/2016 10:40

After my first dd was born by emcs / crash induction due to cord prolapse , I didn't have anything to eat for more than 24 hrs and then when I did get something, couldn't eat it because I had such a horrible sore throat due to the emergency intubation and god awful oral thrush as a consequence couldn't even drink the champagne my dh had brought in to toast our arrival with godparents!.....all I could tolerate was nystatin!
In most cases mums are discharged from hospital within 24 hrs these days, so realistically it's not going to cause that much disturbance to milk supply if you don't eat for a few hours...toast is more than adequate!

CheddarIsNotTheOnlyCheese · 03/10/2016 10:41

When dd2 was born I'd not eaten in 2 days. I was ravenous. There used to be a couple who would make up sandwiches and sell them for 50p to women on the postnatal ward. I bought two. They were the best sandwiches I'd ever eaten. Still love tuna and red onion on oven bottom barm now.

witchywoohoo · 03/10/2016 10:47

Such entitlement on this thread. How would you feel if something awful happened to a mother or baby because the midwife was off making a sandwich or replenishing the snack cupboard or unwrapping the "brioches"!! Our NHS is in the shit and people are complaining that all they are getting is toast. Most people are lucky enough to have friends and family who are perfectly capable of getting them food and drink. Toast. tea, water is perfectly adequate for otherwise healthy women to get by on until they can get what they want from a relative.

Incidentally, the lovely nurses at my local hospital provided me and my children with sandwiches and juice when we had a particularly long wait for an outpatients clinic appointment. Our appointment was at 11 and at 1.30 we still hadn't been called. They automatically came over with the food and said they appreciated that we had missed lunch and teh kids must be hungry. I could have cried with gratitude - the littlest was getting very very hangry!!

I just think that the NHS needs to focus on what it's primary purpose is.

AutumnMadness · 03/10/2016 10:47

Stopyourhavering, the NHS is there for everyone, not just for "most mums who are discharged within 24 hours". Many of us end up on maternity wards for days and days. And judging by this thread, some of these extended stays may well be caused by a lack of adequate nutrition after birth!).

Just because the majority have an unproblematic experience does not mean that a (sizable!) minority should receive substandard treatment that compromises their health and the health of their children.

AutumnMadness · 03/10/2016 10:52

witchywoohoo, a midwife should not be making sandwiches. Surely it does not take that much brain cells and imagination to think about alternative modes of food provision.

Maybe you should have refused that sandwich that you were offered as an outpatient if you think that women how have just given birth can put up with a couple pieces of toast at best and, in many case, nothing at all.

EveOnline2016 · 03/10/2016 10:56

There are more staff on labour wards apart from MW. HCSW ( auxiliary nurse) could be doing the nutrition

Stormtreader · 03/10/2016 11:08

Nutrition is not the same as calories, you can have malnutrition and still be fat.
Surely a basic standard of nutrition for all hospital patients isnt unreasonable? Being low in essential vitamins and minerals weakens your immune system, it seems like the NHS is choosing extended hospital or GP care and prescriptions over "every bed has a legal right to a meal at the three main mealtimes". Even prisoners get fed.

Ninasimoneinthemorning · 03/10/2016 11:15

Wow witchy arnt you entitled for taking those sandwiches for you and your kids?! Why didn't you pack some snacks? How would you feel that some poor child/elderly person/pregnant woman was in danger because they were pandering to you and your kids- in fact whole family were getting fed! - and a bloody out patent as well!! Shock

^ all that was tongue in cheek by the way. Look at how greatful you were because someone took two minuites to make sure you were all ok. So imagine how some of these women feel after going through a traumatic experience, losing lots of blood, not being able to walk, in shock and wanting a fuckung piece of toast. Not too much to ask really is is?? Try not to be a hypocrite and show some empathy when it's to do with other people.

WankingMonkey · 03/10/2016 11:20

Labouring around 16 hours will burn around 50,000 calories - it's the same as running a marathon. Wow, this is actually quite fascinating for me. My labour with DD was 36 hours (not niggly for any of that time, agony and very hard work from the get go) so I could potentially have burnt like 100k calories? Shock

Son was only about 6 hours, and I didn't really get that much pain (though still chose the drugs). Much better.

falange · 03/10/2016 11:54

If they didn't feed you that would be very bad. The fact that they do give you some food in the middle of the night (and I was one who gratefully received toast after a long labour) is good. You do get 3 meals a day whilst in hospital and if you are given toast in the middle of the night you'll be getting breakfast in the morning. You're not going to be malnourished because you only had a slice of toast at that time.

furryminkymoo · 03/10/2016 12:00

I laboured during the night, my DD delivered at 05:15. My midwife made me a piece of buttered toast before leaving at the end of her shift, I was really touched.

In my case (and probably yours too) the bread was actually belong to the ward staff, the toaster in the their kitchen. Yes I was starving and wanted more but I thought that it was a lovely, human personal touch.

OP I appreciate that you were rushed in so couldn't have taken snacks with you so this doesn't apply to you but ladies always pack snack in your hospital bag! all our midwives recommend it.

When DH got his wits about him and the Costa opened a few hours later he got us tea and a snack. I insisted that when he visited/went back to the car etc he picked up tea and food for me.

furryminkymoo · 03/10/2016 12:02

Actually just reread your OP, you did have your hospital bag with, you should have packed snacks!

PerspicaciaTick · 03/10/2016 12:04

I think that the 50,000 calories is not true.
[http://aggieotis.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/calories-burned-during-childbirth.html]]

FeckinCrutches · 03/10/2016 12:46

I'm sorry but there is no way you are burning 50K of calories during labour.

Oysterbabe · 03/10/2016 12:56

You also don't burn 50,000 calories running a marathon, your burn about 2500-3000.

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