To have wanted more than toast?

[Womenareliketeabags]

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?

[FeckinCrutches]

Exactly Oysterbabe someone has just pulled that figure out of their arse I think

[Ninasimoneinthemorning]

Regarding the burning calories who gives a fuck? If it's 50,000, 20,000 or 15,000?

I just did a quick google it's on a few sites,have a look yourself. The point I was making is you do burn a lot of energy/calories so no wonder women are starving.

But if picking over figures gives you jollies and grind them crack on. My point is still valid.

[Ninasimoneinthemorning]

Grins**

[iMogster]

In an ideal NHS we would get a meal at any time day or night as babies arrive at anytime. Unfortunately the NHS is stretched to breaking point and so you get tea and toast and wait until the cafe opens, or bring snacks in your bag or send your DP/DH off to get something.

I went without food for over 24 hours, due to very long labour and was vomiting too. I was empty, hungry and needed food for energy, recovery and to bf my newborn. Both times, my babies arrived at around 2am and I had to wait at least 5 hours until breakfast was served.

[NickyEds]

The birth of my ds went like this:
Saturday am- waters broke but we're bloody so I had to go straight to hospital and went into labour there. Had...toast at lunchtime as I was being monitored.
Saturday pm- missed food as I was properly in labour
Sunday am- missed breakfast and lunch as I was in labour.
Sunday 1pm - ds was born....tea and toast but was told I had missed lunch
Sunday 7pm- admitted to post natal ward. Told that there was no food left. I was starving at this point.
Monday am- seeing bf support during breakfast, asked for them to save me some. They didn't.
Monday lunch- went home for something to eat!

In total I think I went 60 hours on bloody toast. Fair enough for the meals I was in labour but when I left the delivery room after 30 hour of labour to be told that there was no meal was a bit shit. Those saying family should have brought food- dp was told to leave at 7.30 (when they were still promising me a meal), straight after we had got to the ward, so he couldn't. Same goes with the morning, I really needed to see the bf specialist and so just had to miss breakfast.

YANBU. I will always recommend people take pot noodles in their hospital bag from now on!

[pollymere]

My DH got me a takeaway...

[Blondeandinept]

Do you expect a restaurant to provide life saving equipment and skills? No, there will likely be a member of staff trained in basic first aid, but that will be it. Their focus is to serve customers food.

Why would you expect anything more than basic nourishment whilst at a hospital? The medical staff's focus is to save life or bring life in to the world. Not provide you with a food beyond basic nourishment.

[LineyReborn]

One thin piece of bread in 48 hours (despite being asked for a second piece please) is not acceptable, Blondeaninept, it just isn't, especially when you are an immobile medical patient and they've sent your partner home and locked the ward.

They also missed doing a Doppler scan on me that the consultant ordered.

[Blondeandinept]

Well that's an entirely separate thread.

So in 48 hours did you ask for food and they repeatedly say no? Your Dh had absolutely no chance of popping out quickly to get you some food?

[SharonBottsPoundOfGrapes]

When I had dd1 me and the other two ladies on our ward were missed out of all food and tea rounds for a day and a half. The first night dh brought me in a flask of tea that I shared around along with some cookies. The next morning we were missed for breakfast and lunch. I ended up hobbling to the Tesco metro across from the hospital and getting provisions. This was on the same ward that I was threatened with social services if I took my new baby who kept picking up new infections and would definitely have been safer at home.

[MargoReadbetter]

Did others notice there's an MN survey re postnatal care in the UK if > October 2013. Perhaps a good time to air some of these problems.

[MargoReadbetter]

My youngest DC is 9. All the NHS meals I've had have been utterly forgettable both as timing and content. I literally cannot remember a thing about the food.

[NickyEds]

Blond, no my dp couldn't just nip out. He didn't think he needed to. Ds was born at 1pm, followed by stitches shower etc then tea and toast. They said that I would have a meal on the post natal ward in the evening so I was fine with just a slice of toast. However when I got to the ward we had 30 minutes settling in before dp was asked to leave for the evening, they then said that there would be no food until morning.

[DonkeyHotay]

Issue is that basic nourishment is not always provided. Post c-section, women may not be able to access the food they've provided for themselves. For those on a ward, partners will probably get sent home and so can't be sent anywhere, especially if there is an assumption meal wills be provided when a baby was born at 9am. Blondes your experience was clearly more positive than some here, including my own.

YANBU Op.

[LineyReborn]

No, Blondes. As I've said a few times on the thread, I was in for pre-eclampsia, unwell, induced. My labour was very long and very painful.

My partner was sent home and not advised I wouldn't be fed properly. I was immobile, on a drip, no help. The midwives didn't want to know other than telling me to try to breastfeed, when both my baby and I simply wanted to sleep.

I was exhausted, alone, distressed and had nothing to eat, in the middle of the night. I was also still a medical patient.

My overriding memory of my first night with my new baby was crying.

And wanting to at least have something to eat and drink.

[LineyReborn]

Anyway it's obvious that some women get better care than others all round, so I suppose it's that stark a reality.

[Joanna0685]

I think YABU, you were provided with excellent healthcare and fed, even though it may have not been up to your standards. I have been left on a hospital trolley on a corridor for 18 hours with no food and the basic meds they could scramble, the bone infection corridor which I was in didn't stock all my meds. Think of women in developing countries, I think you should be thanking and donating to the hospital involved. Also to women who die daily giving birth in poorer countries go private next time if you don't like it.

[Blondeandinept]

OP, you can list the reasons why your dh coikdnt pop out for fifteen minutes over a two day period, but quite honestly I don't believe you. When he was told to leave, had he said "my partner is starving, I'm going to dash to the shop to get her something to eat". Where there is a will, there is a way.

I just don't expect hospitals to provide me with food. They have saved the life of you and your baby, and your whinging weeks later about the thin peice of toast you were given.

[Blondeandinept]

It's all about expectations, and I suppose we have different ones

[AutumnMadness]

Blondeandinept, next time you are in a hospital, don't forget to get your DH/other relatives to mop up the floor around your bed, bring the clean bedding and change it, and scrub the toilets in addition to providing you with three meals a day. Because, you know, hospitals need to focus on saving lives and not provide you with comforts. And if you don't have a DH/other relatives and happen to be stuck in the hospital for a month not being able to walk, don't forget to pack a month's worth supply of energy bars as you can't possibly expect to be fed all this time by hospital staff.

Ironically, this is precisely what happens in many countries throughout the world. Only they are third-world countries, and I thought the UK was one of the most advanced economies.

[Blondeandinept]

Autumn, the thread was about food. Not care.

If a particular hospital is failing to provide care, then that is a separate issue entirely.

[FrameyMcFrame]

Not everyone has partners that are so obliging blondeandinept.
Can you really not see that relying on family members to feed just delivered mothers is a silly idea?

[londonrach]

Yabu..i was offered toast after giving birth. Not much else can be offered at 1am surely with closed kitchens. It was kind of them to do that. Any other food id get myself. Dh got us fish n chips the night before when i was in. We asked before due to the smell but was told to get it as the kitchens were closed. Best fish n chips ever!

[Blondeandinept]

Agreed.
And I am certain that if the op had said to the nurses, I have no family support and I'm starving, they would have helped her.
She's a grown woman with no special needs and a husband. I guess they figured that she'd be ok with a slice of toast whilst they got around to the business of saving lives

[RaeSkywalker]

Blonde I see getting a decent meal to keep your energy levels up as part of 'care', actually. How can they expect women to recover, establish breastfeeding etc, when they are starving? Food is a basic human need. How can they expect women to feel safe and relaxed in this kind of situation?

I just don't get this attitude towards postnatal women. I was admitted with HG at 7 weeks, and was put on a general women's ward. There were lots of boxes with biscuits, crackers, fruit etc dotted about the wards and corridors- provided by the hospital. The nurses would encourage us all to eat what we fancied, when we fancied it.

... Yet I know that when I actually give birth, this simple provision is not made. There seems to be a total lack of compassion (in some hospital trusts) for women who have just given birth. It's very much seen as a "get on with it" thing. I think that hospitals have a duty of care to look after their patients, and providing food falls under that. It really doesn't have to be anything fancy.