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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:
Albadross · 01/10/2016 18:55

Considering I was force-fed a tuna sandwich just because they gave me an ibuprofen in A&E once, I do often wonder why they don't just keep some stuff that keeps and doesn't require cooking lying about. I had tea and toast too.

SnugglySnerd · 01/10/2016 18:55

That's a cup of coffee and slice of toast more than I got! I had a sandwich at 5pm, they broke my waters at 10pm, DD was delivered by emergency section the following afternoon, I was moved onto a ward in the middle of the night and finally given a small bowl of cornflakes at 6am the following morning.
As soon as DH arrived to see me he was sent to the hospital Costa to gather food!

amysmummy12345 · 01/10/2016 18:57

Post partum toast and tea is the nectar of the gods!!

ChocolateWombat · 01/10/2016 18:58

I think we have to be realistic here and appreciate what is possible and where our own responsibilities lie.

They fed you toast and in the middle of the night managed to get you some extra. Food was provided.

Proper meals will be provided at normal meal times.....but I don't think the NHS can be expected to have meals for everyone 24 hours a day, even in am eternity ward. As long as they had something to offer you, that should be fine. You have to provide anything extra yourself.
However, your DH had some responsibility to take too - going off without leaving you any money or food was his mistake. He could have left you money or at least gone to a vending machine to get you something.

It's interesting that this has stuck in your mind, I guess that if this was the worst aspect of your birth and hospital experience, the whole thing can't have been too bad!

FunkinEll · 01/10/2016 18:59

Oh god, this reminds me of the tiny boxes of cereal on offer on the post natal ward the morning after I had my first baby. I was ravenous and I got a tiny porting of ducking rice crispies.

I had the rest at home and ordered take away after!

Congratulations on your baby OP, sorry things got complicated at the end, I hope you're feeling better.

TheFormidableMrsC · 01/10/2016 19:01

This happened to me...by the time I had had DS, I hadn't eaten for 24 hours. I was utterly ravenous. I was given a slice of toast and a cup of tea and that was it until I left the hospital at lunchtime the next day. I was so hungry I thought I was going to pass out. To be fair to now ex-h, I was told that I would get something on the ward so didn't ask him to go and fetch food. It didn't happen unfortunately. I do think it is unacceptable in all honesty...and it didn't happen when I had DD 18 years ago. DS was born 5 years ago.

Katedotness1963 · 01/10/2016 19:09

I had my eldest at 6:40am. I got no breakfast as I hadn't ordered anything the night before. The fact I went to the hospital at 2:30am was the reason for that.

Lunch arrived, macaroni cheese, and the doctor arrived to examine me. By the time he left it was cold and congealed.

Dinner was a steak with so much salt and garlic on it it was inedible.

Nowhere in the hospital to buy any food or drink.

Amalfimamma · 01/10/2016 19:15

YABU. With DD I was NBM from midnight, gave birth at 3.30pm had nothing all day, next morning at breakfast had tea. Lunch broth and dinner broth.

I had to get DH to sneak me in a sandwich I was that hungry.

Cary2012 · 01/10/2016 19:18

OP I think yabvu!
Your medical attention that night cost thousands, you realise that don't you?
Yours and the baby's life were the only concern. You got coffee and toast in the middle of the night, and you moan about it?

Can't wait to show this thread to my DD when she returns from her 12 hour A&E shift...

JaniceBattersby · 01/10/2016 19:29

I would absolutely eat a 6-hour-old McDonald's when I'd just had a baby. I'd eat a scabby horse, if offered, TBH.

The fries are quite nice if a little soggy cold.

expatinscotland · 01/10/2016 19:32

YABU

LikelyLama · 01/10/2016 19:34

Don't be ridiculous even private hospitals don't provide meals 24 hours a day

Lol, think you will find that they do. I saw the food they serve at the Portland Hospital on TV - it looked amazing. 24 hour room service. Yes please!

LikelyLama · 01/10/2016 19:34

BTW I forgot to say YABU. The NHS is broke....

welshgirlwannabe · 01/10/2016 19:42

Yanbu. And when they do feed you the portions are so small!! I'm petite and generally not a big eater but after the marathon that is labour and gearing up for the marathon that is breastfeeding I needed vast amounts of nourishing food.

The paltry little spoonful of porridge I was served for my breakfast made me sad

paulweller73Murielswedding · 01/10/2016 19:46

I worked as an agency nurse in the late 90's. At that time they had a 24 hour menu available to all patients. It was brought up on a trolley by a porter dressed as a butler. There was also kingsize beds in homely, tasteful private rooms for the parents to snuggle up together in. It's a different world.

paulweller73Murielswedding · 01/10/2016 19:47

At the Portland.

HerFaceIsaMapOfTheWorld · 01/10/2016 19:55

I am 50/50 on this because yes your dh should be there and leave you money but sometimes women don't have partners so what are they to do. It is obvious after birth you will be hungry, when i had lipo suction (which I know is not the same) even I had a nurse to feed me chicken noodle soup and this was in a third world country.
So in that case I kind of dont feel you are being unreasonable, women who give birth are obviously going to be starving after and I am sure you paid your fair share into the NHS to have a £2 ready meal.

TheFormidableMrsC · 01/10/2016 19:58

I am really surprised at some of the comments here. Surely people in hospital need to have decent nutrition regardless of what they are there for. You wouldn't expect anybody to have thought about packing snacks if they'd been taken into hospital, or like me, rushed in because my waters broke and were full of meconium. Bloody snacks were the last things on my mind! Hmm. Post birth, exhausted, trying to breastfeed, caring for a newborn and nearly passing out with hunger is simply not OK! I am not blaming nursing staff, those who do an amazing and thankless job day in and day out but surely part and parcel of any sort of recuperation requires food?? A difficult subject but I don't think the OP IBU at all. To the poster who said that private hospitals don't provide meals 24 hours a day, you're wrong. My Mum was treated for cancer, privately, at the Royal Free. She could order what she wanted 24/7 because she was paying for it. So it IS available...yet NHS patients would have been told that nothing was available outside of meal times. It's not right IMO.

strawberrypenguin · 01/10/2016 20:03

Hmm I link you are being a bit unreasonable if you were that hungry DH should have got you something or bought something in for you. They did give you coffee and toast. But then I've vomited after my labours and didn't want food particularly

OlennasWimple · 01/10/2016 20:04

I'm genuinely surprised at the harsh responses here - it seems like the opposite of the mythical MN chicken!

Even if you didn't have anything to eat for seven weeks when you had your DC, and you were fine with it, it surely isn't unreasonable to want more than a slice of bread after giving birth. Something light immediately after, and then something more substantial a little while after.

(I didn't even get the ambrosial tea and toast after giving birth - in fact, I often missed a) ordering and b) eating on the postnatal ward, because I was with my baby in SCBU. It appeared that no-one considered that possibility, and no-one thought about any kind of work around (like telling me when meal times were, or calling SCBU to let me know food had arrived))

PurpleCrazyHorse · 01/10/2016 20:04

When I had DD the midwife found me a jacket potato and cheesecake but it was only about 8pm. In the early hours I've only ever got a sandwich or toast.

I also had an emergency transfer but had a stash of mars bars and money in my bag. DH bought me a cooked breakfast from the canteen at visiting time the next day.

I think it's more your fault for not having snacks in your maternity bag, rather than the NHS for not having a 24hr kitchen. You'll probably find the canteen also closes for hot food overnight.

silentlyfume · 01/10/2016 20:08

I think yabu to have not packed snacks and a drink in your emergency bag.

They gave you toast. They simply don't have the budget for 24 hour food and the wastage involved.

I would have killed for toast when dd was blue lighted in from the gp at a few days old. Walked in with just her as lived five minutes away and she was feeling grotty. She then decided to completely go blue and floppy in gp room and terrify everyone.

I ended up at a hospital 9 miles from home with one change of clothes for her, two nappies and no money. No family nearby.

Ended up on a side private bay which I wasn't allowed to leave without a nurse coming in.

Told I wasn't allowed food because I wasn't breast feeding (had been told to stop by consultant because of my own health problems)

For three days until family could get there iived off tea until the lady who brought food round sneaked me the meal of a child who had gone home.

Floridasunset · 01/10/2016 20:09

The tea and toast I was given after was amazing. They also offered a sandwich a few hours later but I was happily eating the fruit and chocolate from my overnight bag. In an ideal world they would be able to provide you with meals at any time but they are struggling for money and have to prioritise. All the research I did when pregnant regarding packing your bag mentioned food and drink

ButtMuncher · 01/10/2016 20:15

I've just had to ask DP whether I ate after having DS. I genuinely can't remember much of that day due to oral morphine (c-sec) - I remember the water I had with a straw in recovery, but apparently all I ate was sandwiches with plastic cheese. I don't remember it.

PinkSwimGoggles · 01/10/2016 20:18

yanbu at all
giving birth is like running a marathon. and in addition your body is starting to produce milk.
food is such a basic need.
no wonder bf rates are so low.
dh left me his 6pack of snickers after dc was born.
by the morning I had eaten all of them.

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