To ask you to carry your pregnancy notes with you?

[NC4T]

I am a triage midwife. One of the biggest frustrations of the job is women turning up without their notes. I have some very basic information on the computer but I have no scan reports, no record of any of your antenatal appointments or admissions or consultant plans or anything!

Obviously when women know they are coming in they bring their notes, so I am talking about the unexpected admissions - the falls, RTAs, bleeding at work, fainting, unexpected waters breaking etc etc. Which is exactly when we most need the information! It’s also a huge problem as we are close to lots of centres of employment so every day have women being admitted who are not booked here, but haven’t taken their notes into work and we are the closest hospital for their emergency. Then we have not even the most basic information.

Just now I have taken a routine phone call and have referred her to a page in her notes, to be told “oh no, I haven’t got them, I am at work in x city”. Well why haven’t you?

So please, I know they are bulky, I know it’s a faff but carry your notes with you wherever you go. You just don’t know when you might need to go to the nearest maternity unit!

Is this the case for anyone with an ongoing health condition? I would not have been prepared to carry around sensitive private information and risk losing it or having colleagues or randoms find it.

A lot of people assume that the NHS has a reasonable book keeping facility. They don't realise that, despite all the money that was spent trying to digitise records, if you are pregnabt/a child it is unlikely that there are any notes being stored properly about you anywhere. And even if there are only the service that made the notes had immediate access to them.

I don’t think it’s clear cut. Perfectly sensible, intelligent women have all sorts of reasons why this might not happen. I have just delivered a friend to hospital to deliver, 8 weeks early. Now all her other children were of a similar prematurity, so it wasn’t a surprise. But she was so traumatised by these experiences she was in compete denial that she might have another premmie and the lack of acknowledging it might happen (not preparing, finishing work, carrying notes, packing a bag) was a big part of her denial.

That can’t be uncommon. That said it was no problem to get a copy of them reprinted when we arrived.

Mine were huge, not something you’d carry on your handbag on the tube. Too much chance of losing them!

I fell over at work ( a school, downhill on a concrete playground) at 28 weeks pregnant. I foolishly didn’t have my notes on me but had saved important numbers into my phone. Spoke to my midwife and then the hospital on the phone - fortunately I was able to answer lots the Qs asked and I knew important information such as my blood type anyway. Luckily, my bump/baby was fine and I took the full force of the fall scraping my knee, palm and elbow (I did end up in hospital later as our first aider suspected I may have broken my wrist - fortunately not).

Afterwards, I was so annoyed with myself for not having my notes as the fall could have end in a far more serious situation than it did. I now have my notes in the boot of my car so that I can grab them quickly at all times. I know leaving them in the car is a bit risky but also know that I would probably forget to grab them otherwise.

Had online records for my second pregnancy but they didn't seem as comprehensive as my previous paper notes. When I was getting extra scans midwife and I couldn't find out what the concerns were, there was just a record that I had been to an appointment! They also didn't have contact info for midwife.

Also a good tip keep a set of numbers in your purse with important numbers, so whoever your with can contact people who need to know I had the numbers on a piece of paper in my purse on my notes and a copy for my friend and DP.

My notes from the OB stay with them. I cant take them/dont have a copy.

My antinatal notes stay there also.

My midwife notes I have in a file. But its a3 and bulging. Why its on a3 paper is beyond me. Makes it difficult to carry them.

But this is not something I have ever thought about.

Should they be together? Should I have them?

I live in London and was working away when I had to go to hospital as I kept fainting. The midwives said they couldn’t fathom my notes and didn’t touch them. They put all their notes in an envelope and tucked it into the book. I showed my regular midwife team the envelope and they looked a bit worried and never opened it...

The way they treated that envelope made me want to put more interesting things in there - plans for a bank heist etc.

I took mine on work trips during the third trimester, but it didn't occur to me to have them with me at all times. I'd almost certainly have lost them or left them at work over the weekend, or thrown coffee (decaf, honest guv... well most of them were...) all over them had I done so! And I don't remember being told to always carry them.

I should have done really, I used to be a ward clerk and spent a lot of time trying to track down mulitple sets of case notes belonging to indivdual patients and amalgamate them into one file. The sheer volume of paper and the arcane numbering and filing systems made it a nightmare - there were four separate locations in the hospital and at least three different numbering systems. So why I'd expect things to be better now is a mystery 😂

Not everyone travels everywhere by car.

This means while it would be ideal for me to have my notes with me due to their bulk I'm not going to take yet another heavy bag to carry them on public transport on a trip to another part of London.

YANBU. However, all my notes from my routine appointments were electronic so my actual pack of notes had very little in it. It doesn't sound like they would have been much help if I'd presented somewhere that I wasn't booked.

I have ADHD, if I carried them everywhere I would lose them...

Thanks for explaining. This is the sort of thing that I wish we all knew. More generally I always wish I knew how GPs surgeries worked so we could all be a bit more helpful and do what they need us to do.

Let's consider for a moment the sort of information we're talking about:

• previous pregnancies and how those pregnancies concluded
• family health history
• personal health history: HIV, other STIs, depression, PND, operations, addiction/substance abuse problems, mental health diagnoses
• social services involvement

Isn't this advice a bit irresponsible?

Mine is a bulky A4 folder which doesn't fit in most of my handbags. So whilst I never forget it for my booked appointments, I don't feel comfortable carrying it at other times. They haven't designed it with portability in mind!

I never took my notes to work! took them to every appointment though..

and on long journeys just in case

I’m in Scotland, in my last pregnancy my notes went everywhere with me. This time they are digital - they are useless, contain almost no information - far far less than last time, nothing about scan results for example not even blood pressure measurements.
What little info there is in there I had assumed would at least be visible to all other hospitals until a friend of mine was unwell while down in London and they couldn’t access this digital record. When I mentioned this to my midwife she said indeed, they can’t access them directly I’d have to log in from my smartphone at the hospital and show them.
When I go on holiday at about 28 weeks I’m going to make a printout of what paltry information there is in there and take that but it won’t help them much!

Mine were in an a4 folder too. Hardly designed for carrying around at all times for 6 months.
I totally understand why it's good to have them in case of an emergency but it's just not practical.

I was actually told by my midwife that I didn't need to start carrying them around till about 28 weeks. I'm more scared about losing them!

I took mine with me when I was pregnant with twins as I was high risk. I ended up accidentally leaving them on the train once as they wouldn’t fit in my bag. It was such a pain getting new ones done and I needed another booking appointment with the midwife to redo them. She actually to told me not to take them with me everywhere because she was worried I’d lose them again!

I'm in Scotland but mine are mainly on the Maternity Notes app. I don't have a paper copy, so I assume it's all done digitally.

It sounds like yours just aren't being updated properly, previous poster. Mine has all my information and results, including BP, and midwives leave notes for me about things to discuss at next appointments etc. I think it's great! But obviously not good if your midwives don't update it properly.

I'm a reasonably sensible person but it had never occurs me to carry my notes at all times. I'm pregnant for the second time now so I shall make sure I do so this time, thanks OP.

@sexnotgender I don't know if depends where in Scotland you are but here I got mine at booking, but they just have my name, dob, and due date in them. Then a page with phone numbers for triage, women's physio etc. Nothing is recorded in them and I've not been asked for them yet despite having them to hand (I'm 32 weeks).

I had my last child in 2001 and I wasn't given notes then to carry around. I got some book that had a few points of note in it that I brought to my appointments and that was it. I was consultant/midwife led.

Is this a new thing?