AIBU for hating the Pampas advert thanking midwives.

[ToadsforJustice]

I didn't have a positive experience with any of the MW I had the misfortune of seeing whilst having my DC.

I find the advert really triggering. I don't think I would thank anyone for the misery and pain they caused me.

I am certainly not believing you when I say this but what totally shit midwife would comment on the appearance of a woman after labour.

The type of midwife, nurse or other medical staff that retaliate for a formal complaint made against one of their co-workers. I had a witness and the whole experience with the abuse, I haven't described and won't talk about, escalated. I had to take it further and luckily had an advocate for me. The hospital I was at has had multitudes of complaints about a bullying culture and yet every time it's investigated they are cleared. They probably will continue to get away with this culture. It's not just the patients who suffer it's also the midwives, nurses, doctors who are good at their job, who want to provide good quality care being undermined, bullied and threatened into remaining silent. I'd like to say a big f*ck you to those who pursue this profession because you are a sadistic little bully who gets a kick out of being paid to have an endless supply of vulnerable people to take advantage of. I hope you one day get what you deserve.

All my midwives at my births were surly, seemed to not give a shit, showed impatience.

@zzzz one or 2 posters have said about the exaggerating and being Princessy. The rest you are just twisting. The person who mentioned about people dying was just commenting on history and gave an opinion on why they feel women were silenced in the past. Nobody has said its not their fault (you tried to twist that one earlier and got called out) or that we are nice, or we don't have time. You just don't want to hear opinions from everyone unless it matches with your own. That's not the way the way it is unfortunately.

Well said zzzzz.

Fwiw to all who have posted their personal experiences of traumatic birth, being bullied, mistreated and not receiving the care that you deserve, I think you are very brave in having gone through this and for sharing your experience and opinions. I believe you

zzzzz
I genuinely don't know if you have trouble with reading comprehension or if you just enjoy conflict.

You've totally misunderstood so many points.

The poster referring to women dying in childbirth was backing up the women on here who have had trauma; she was disagreeing with the idea that in the modern world we have these unrealistic expectations. She went on to explain that the main reason lots of these stories weren't told in the past is that women were dead.

I too was backing up the women on here who have had trauma. My first posts were all about how disgusting it is to minimise women's concerns. In fact, I did the very opposite of minimising in the post you keep misconstruing; I described the HUGE scale of the problem. I called it systemic. Do you know what that means? It means the problems are worse than a couple of mean midwives. I also in the same post said that there are individual midwives who totally deserve censure. I have not once suggested that recognising a systemic problem replaces dealing with each case of unacceptable practice.

Why are you looking for a fight?

@chocolatelavender just to be clear I do believe you, I am just shocked!

Same here, not great experiences with midwives bar one who was leaving to become a health visitor. Two maternity units had just merged and they spent the time openly bitching about each other and arguing over methods. Incoming midwife to outgoing after I’d had an epidural “no I won’t use the ice spray on her, we never did that in our unit”. Not the midwives fault but my first shower post EMC was in a shower covered in mold

Of course you don't have to agree with me.

But it'd be helpful if you'd disagree with my actual points rather than making up imaginary ones and repeating them even after it's been pointed out to you.

The fact that you interpreted my words as pretty much the exact opposite of what I said was especially galling.

I believed all the women who had trauma.

In my scenario, there is an unacceptable prevalence of mistreatment of women by midwives. That, again in my scenario, can be traced back to deeply entrenched poor attitudes to women. It's a deep problem. Systemic, if you will. The systemic nature of the problem makes it easier for bad midwives to get away with poor treatment.

In your scenario, there is also lots of poor treatment. But the reason is... what? Midwives are bitches? An unusually high proportion of unpleasant people elect to become midwives? Really?

I apologise if I've genuinely upset you. It did seem that you were deliberately misrepresenting my points or that you just didn't get it. I'd even already picked you up on it, but on you went.

On a highly emotive topic like this it's incredibly frustrating and upsetting to have your views totally misrepresented.

I couldn't understand why you were doing it.

Well I don't think you have reading issues, I think you are intentionally twisting the posts on here because it is quite clear that some of those things are the complete opposite.
It's not about your opinion, you are claiming things are written in this thread, and it simply isn't true.

If you didn't want a personal attack (which again, I can't see), maybe you shouldn't lie.

Again, what's irritating is the misrepresention of my point.

You said I was suggesting that individuals are not accountable for their behaviour.

I didn't.

I get that you don't want to admit that.

It's fine that you think the poor treatment of women is "just one of those things" and has no explanation. We just disagree on that.

Ok. You're resorting to abuse now. Great.

It's fine that you have a different opinion. Just don't attribute made-up opinions to others.

Personally, I find it wildly unlikely that all the shared concerns (dismissal of women's pain, failure to ask permission, refusal to accept that women are in labour) are unlinked. Bit of a coincidence that it's happening in so many cases isn't it?

However, if you think it's not worth digging deeper into the system and its attitudes, fine.

I think you didn't like the suggestion that we look beyond the surface because you just want to lay into midwives.

Which is up to you, I guess.

Being treated with respect and not as a mere vessel isnt being melodramatic, its a basic human right. Some may be good at the technical side but they also must have a good bedside manner, like it or not they have no right to disrespect a patient, mock them, threaten them none of it. Bad bedside manner and quite frankly abuse leaves women traumatized

This x 100 @squeekums

Technical skill has to be accompanied by good bedside manner. And if you can't deliver on both counts then don't do the job. As I said upthread, I was blown away by how great the midwives were when I had DS (not a nice birth or postnatal period by anyone's standards). I had read so much on here about midwives being awful, but the ones who attended to us were amazing. I remember thinking 'it's 4am, you've been here ages, you look knackered, how do you still have the energy and compassion to comfort the crying mum in the next bed so kindly and personally and then do the same for me as I get told that DS has lost even more weight?'

I was in hospital 8 days and encountered loads of midwives, most of whom were brilliant. I think that demonstrates that it is possible to deliver a service as described above and it should be the norm. And I don't think it's wrong to hold midwives to higher standards than some other medics because birth is such a uniquely vulnerable time for any woman, mentally and physically.

But a lot of jobs are mentally and physically taxing, firefighters, paramedics, nurses and doctors and it's not acceptable for either them or midwives to act in this manner. Again no one should be expecting smiles and cheerfulness 100% of the time, but deliberate nastiness?

Also, as practitioner you are in a position of authority and therefore power, that means you lose the right to treat patient 2 rubbish because patient 1 behaved unacceptably towards you.

But management does matter a lot. When I got admitted to my local A&E (during an insanely busy time), everyone was visibly working as a team and I was not only well treated medically speaking (though with long waiting times for obvious reasons), but with genuine kindness and sympathy. By everyone! I was full of admiration as you could tell they were overworked- a junior dr pretty much collapsed on my bed and they had to lock my ward at night as they were dealing with an aggressive patient next door.

Next time I was in with DP- the whole vibe had changed and you could hear open bitching about each other. It felt like a miserable place to work in and definitely a miserable place to be treated at.

Just seen this advert. It's very lovely and midwives mostly do a fantastic job. However, it's not just midwives who deserve the thanks. What about the housekeepers, admin staff, theatre staff, doctors and porters etc..........

It's the whole team who give care to the woman, not just the midwife.