To think post natal wards are absolute shit?

[SprogletsMum]

I had ds2 this morning and have been put onto a full 4 bay ward.

2 of the 3 other women have been quiet most of the day but one keeps ringing people all day long. There has not been a single minute of quiet all day.
I've been awake since 1am and I'm shattered but she just won't shut up.
I'm going home to the other 3 dc for some peace and quiet as soon as ds2s 12 hours of obs are up.

Hot, noisy, kids crashing around, mobiles going off all hours, and some bastard man wandering through the curtains of my cubicle to grab my chair (as there was a million people visiting his wife all at once all pigging day) when I was breastfeeding. I may have sworn at him.

Original that is terrible! I am most worried about this part. I've seen the virtual online tour of the ante natal wards and the birthing rooms which seem fine but definitely going to be leaning on my DH once i go to a post natal ward to make sure I'm stocked up with everything, can go for lots of wees whilst he's there and prepare my cubicle like a little prison so no one can come in uninvited or steal my chairs!!!

Slippers, dressing gown, change of nighty, regular food supply. That's about it really. You will just spend time staring at the baby anyway!

"belittling and discrediting people's pain"

Exactly, I would say I've probably had more experience of life on postnatal wards than most. Five separate stays lasting over four weeks in total (I counted!). I can say with confidence that my experiences were absolutely typical and those who had a less awful time are the atypical ones.

In my case the hospital involved was the Royal Berks, first time 16 years ago, most recently 5 years ago. With my first dc the postnatal care wasn't so horrendous but labour was a disaster. The midwife attending me was subsequently removed from the register under awful circumstances. After that I managed to negotiate fabulous antenatal & delivery care for my high risk pregnancies (weekly consultant visits - same consultant every time (she even gave me her home number, I will be forever grateful), no midwives, scans every two weeks, delivery by c-section at 37 weeks, my mum & dh could both be in theatre with me etc). So I stuck with them despite knowing that the standard post natal 'care' would be absolutely shit. The truly brilliant treatment* I got (particularly in my last two pregnancies) did not alter the awfulness of postnatal ward.

(* that came at a cost - 6 pregnancy losses including two in the second trimester before they started listening to me)

Oh & I'm a medic & my mum is a midwife who at the time worked in the unit & it made not a blind bit of difference. I think someone down thread suggested unfamiliarity with hospitals & 'hormones' was responsible for our misery. I disagree. I have enough experience of hospitals as staff & patient to know that in the hierarchy the patients needs are off the bottom of the page. For many HCPs we are just a massive inconvenience & we should accept that with gratitude 'cos it's free init

I don't expect them to magically transform into single rooms with abundant staff but there are plenty of things that could be done in improve things & changing the frankly nasty attitude of some of the staff would be a massive improvement.

miow I made a comment saying that I hoped the poor care wwasn't typical. This is to be taken at face value : that I hope most women do have reasonable experiences. This is not meant to belittle at all.

I have had 3 dc, and stayed on postnatal wards for around a week in total. I have had great experiences.

Fanatical, Blakes ( the old one in Ham Lane) was the one I was praising, the new one at War Memorial is where some of my friends children and grandchildren were born and seems to have been good experiences generally.

All these sound awful. I feel for you all.

DS1 was born in a MLU, no hospital anywhere near. Only 4 beds and it looked lovely, but he was born just before 3pm and I was in my own bed before 11pm. We just stayed in the pool room until we went home as there was no births due at that time.

DS2 was born at home.

There is no way I stay in hospital unless medically needed.

I'm sorry to hear others terrible experiences. It seems like I am one of the fortunate few to have two very different but both brilliant post natal experiences in hospital.

DS1 born in a birthing center - private room, clean newly built building and discharged 4hrs post birth.

DS2 born on the delivery ward - prem with a total stay of 6 nights between my waters going and DS being fit to discharge. Had a side room the whole time, food was excellent, quiet and well air conditioned (this was last august when it was boiling outside). I couldn't have asked for better care from the midwifery team, they were fantastic. The ward was very run down and needed a paint but that didn't ruin the experience.

The thing that really stands out is these fucking wards.

' at least when I was in with DD1 there was a mentality among the staff of almost being nice to those who'd "done well" in delivery'

Yes! That is so true. It really made me cross.
My first birth was back to back, slow, epidural, ventouse. No-one was actually nasty to me. But dc2 just flobbered out of me with no effort and no need for pain relief and I got a huge amount of praise from the midwives. Bloody ridiculous. Dc1 had taken far more effort and resilience and yet there I was with everyone saying well done to me for the easy one.

I have also had poor post natal ward experience.

The first was pretty typical. Hot, busy, overstretched staff. Some of the staff were amazing, absolutely wonderful but as I was in for 4 nights following a failed induction and an EMCS I encountered a few horrors.

I complained about one Midwife who had a terrible attitude to me daring to want my the pain relief that I was written up for. According to her I wasn't feeling plain, I was actually tired. She went on to refuse to give me my tramadol and a lovely cleaner found me in agony, went to fetch the Midwife who didn't come and when the cleaner came back to check on me then got the ward manager because she was so annoyed at the midwife's behaviour. I was also repeated laughed out by a support worker with half a working brain cell because "I was still feeding that baby hahaha there must be something no right hahahaha". I was made to feel awful but my baby was behaving like a normal, breastfed baby. When I did need some breastfeeding support an absolute roughian of a nursery nurse - who stank of fags- grabbed my breast and shoved my baby in a completely unacceptable manner.

I was also shouted at my a neo natal nurse practitioner who took my baby from me without introducing herself or showing me id. My DM was with me as my husband had to work and she challenged her and got a mouthful and a dirty look. Fortunately my DM Had recently retired from a 40 year nursing career so knew what she was talking about and the other staff took this aspect of my complaint very seriously.

I will say the ward was generally very clean, most of the staff were kind but sometimes abrupt but the number of times I was left waiting for medication and in pain was awful.

After my second section (planned) at a different hospital this postnatal ward was still hot and crowded but noticibly less busy. I still experienced the same crap about pain medication and I wasn't listened to when I repeated told staff that something was wrong and I fel very unwell. 24 hours after my section I was finally taken seriously when I projectile vomited right next to a supper work. It turned out my bowel was blocked and had swollen massively. I was blue lit to the hospital that I had my first baby in and underwent emergency bowel surgery. I was then in a general surgery ward for two nights, followed by 6 nights in the high dependency post natal ward. The care in both of those wards was amazing and far better than in the post natal ward. Pain relief was plentiful ( patient controlled morphine), staff were busy but the ratio was 1 Midwife to 3 patients, I was listened to, cared for, supported and encouraged. Even though I was extremely unwell I still have more positive memories of my second post natal period than my first.

The lack of pain relief is astonishing. The lady next to me when I had DC3 cried and moaned all night in pain after an EMCS and being given only oral paracetamol. I couldn't believe it! I really couldn't.

But then, I had a 'pain nurse' tell me, 'Let's carry on with the hot packs and dihydracodeine' when my daughter was screaming in pain from typhilitis after chemotherapy. I dismissed her and went for her consultant, who ordered the first bolus of morphine whilst another doctor went for the black phone. She was on both morphine and ketamine within an hour with a PCA pump.

I agree that it seems to be the women who have had the good postnatal experiences are those who either gave birth in a midwife led unit or had a short stay on the postnatal ward.

I also think that staffing seems to be one of the problems most talked about on this thread, along with ward temperature, awful food and lack of privacy. I was in hdu for 2 days after having ds5 and had my own room with bathroom (which was wasted on me as I couldn't get out of bed) and a midwife there just for me about 50% of the time. Despite feeling rough as hell it was the better part of my stay.

Unfortunately I think there is a mentality on the post natal ward that is quite anti pain relief - perhaps if you are strung out on morphine you can't respond to the baby so well - but if you receive adequate coverage ( paracetamol, ibuprofen plus dihydrocodeine simultaneously) and are given the pain meds on time you are able to move about a bit more and not be too spaced out. However, despite being written up for more powerful drugs by the anesthetists there seemed to be a real problem with getting them administered by some ward staff.

DS1 - emergency c-section, pretty much left alone for two days and then discharged without feeding being checked. Re-admitted two days later due to his weight loss. Utterly soul destroying going back there.

DTs - first day on postnatal was ok. I was assigned a student midwife, probably because of having twins. I was then ignored for three more days before demanding to go home. I think they'd forgotten I was there.

Ward too hot, midwives not in enough supply, ditto care assistants, doctors, cleaners, breastfeeding experts. Food utterly grim. Other women on the phone all hours. Bathrooms dirty. I was told to leave my jug of urine in the loo so they could check I'd done enough. It was still there two days later.

And do not get me started on the fucking partners there 24 hours a day. Lovely man next to me constantly slagging me off to his partner when my one day old twins were tag team crying and I was having a difficult time dealing with it.

'However, despite being written up for more powerful drugs by the anesthetists there seemed to be a real problem with getting them administered by some ward staff.'

This poor woman was definitely in that category. I was an old hand so had brought in my own paracetamol and ibuprofen, which I administered myself because that trolley never came near my bed, and I'd have a ventouse delivery with him and stitches. I'd also brought food after not being able to feel my legs from epidural at breakfast time, where you had to go down the corridor to fetch it.

The general attitude was that the patients, the mothers, were a nuisance and irritating. That was true when I had DC1, too, but with DC2, I was thankfully able to discharge off the labour suite.

Thing is, when you're in pain, you don't recover well. I learned this when I'd had major ops on my legs after an accident and was fearful of using pain meds. So you get a knock on effect of poor recovery, and that's ultimately more expensive.

I hated it. Staff were absolutely lovely and brilliant, other patients and the comfort level were annoying. Noisy, hot, hard beds, too many visitors for the other women. Why can't they wait... I didn't have any visitors as I wanted to recover in peace. One woman next to me had her two drunk mates there for hours. There's no escape!

DC3 also had a tongue tie. I knew it from having had the other two, but they were completely uninterested. I told them at 8am I wanted discharged. At 6pm, my husband arrived, a 2 hour drive, with our other two children. Told them we were leaving as the ferry was on Winter schedule, and going straight to the MLU in our town. They managed to conjure up a paed asap, no one for me. Did go straight there, where I told the midwife, 'Think this one has a tongue tie,' and why. She examined him. Yep. Got out a pack with the equipment, snipped and he fed like a dream after that. Someone actually bothered to look at my stitches, too, with together with obs revealed I developed a fever in the night so got ABs. I'm sure the filthy toilet in that ward didn't do my genitals any favours.

Oh god yeah and all the people coming poking head through the curtain to fiddle with baby, bounty woman, breastfeeding woman, baby movement woman, baby hearing woman... I know they have to but it just felt like an annoying stream of people when I felt really vulnerable and paralysed.

Yes, the lack of adequate pain relief!

I had an epidural for a third degree tear repair and when that wore off (and when a midwife forced me to get out of bed - God I was so terrified to move, it was just a few hours post surgery) I was in so much pain I couldn't speak. My teeth were chattering, I was in such a bad way.

Sent DH for help and no one came to actually SEE how I was. Someone eventually appeared with two paracetamol Of course it did nothing and so I had to wait even longer before I received something stronger (Oramorph, actually).

That was the point when I knew that no one cared about doing a good job. No one would waste time on actually going to check on a mother in pain to ascertain what kind of pain relief she might need. Take your two paracetamol and stop bothering us, sweetheart.

Not all NHS hospitals are like this. In mine, I got my own room each time, one for 1 night and once for 4 nights.

Oh I had my own room.

If anything, that meant I could be ignored more easily than those on wards who had staff milling around all day.

My experience of post natal ward has been enough to nearly put me off another baby for life. I became very unwell whilst there (mentally) and was made to feel that I was abandoning my son whenever I asked my more than willing partner to step in because I had barely slept for he seven days leading up to the birth (induction, but two days in for reduced movement beforehand that resulting in a section anyway).

It was the last hot week in the summer so the ward was 42c one day. All breastfeeding advice differed and they told me I was feeding him enough when doing their checks (in the end I started my own chart as I was so out of it that when they came round I forgot when and how long) but by the third day my DS had lost 11% because I was taking their advice and when I worried that he wasn't waking to feed much they told me to never wake a sleeping baby I ended up having to supplement with formula whilst there because I just didn't trust any advise I received and I was so tired I didn't have the energy to source my own info or call LLL.

They left me without antibiotics twice which caused an infection and refused to discharge me on the night we could have gone home because they said they didn't trust I'd be safe with my son despite my MH nurse saying if she could go home she'd at least be able to sleep - it was impossible to sleep on that ward - 8 in a bay, staff were loud and you'd get asked the same questions over and over again. In the end my DP wrote down my needs and babies needs and our feeding/nappy chart and put it outside the bay to stop them disturbing us but they continued.

They tried to force me to take a sleeping tablet that my MH nurse disagreed with. I refused because I checked BF interaction and it wasn't advised and they told me I was unreasonable.

I absolutely hated every second. It left me with severe PTSD in the two months following to the point where I had nightmares and I was afraid of having to go back in.

On the smallest chance it did happen again (it scared my DP too) we'd go private. I'd willing get into debt to ensure my mental health and the safety and security of my child. Seven months on I still have nightmares and haven't been able to write a complaint because I'm so afraid.