Hospital wants to send me home after PPROM. I don’t want to go. Help.

[CatsEye99]

Posting for traffic. My waters broke at home and were bright red, and I was 26 weeks with DCDA twins. I called an ambulance and was rushed to hospital where I had a huge gush of red fluid. I was counselled about preterm birth and given steroid injections. I saw a neonatal doctor who stated the most important thing was to deliver at a hospital with NICU cots.

Despite severe agonising pain, a week has passed and I haven’t given birth. Twins aren’t distressed and my observations are fine.

However I feel incredibly unwell. I keep burning hot and turning red but my temp is not raised. I feel like I have the flu or another illness. I have no energy and can barely move due to pain. Codeine won’t touch it. A midwife told me to have a hot bath which I am sure is contraindicated.

The staff want to send me home. I have stated I do not want to go home due to me living an hour from the hospital and the risk of infection, cord compression, preterm delivery and stillbirth. I do not want to lose my babies. I want to remain in the unit with NICU like the doctor advised.

Can anyone give me any advice? I can’t find any info on this anywhere and feel like the staff are fobbing me off.

I am shocked too, the care you are receiving sounds appalling.

Another one holding your hand to give you strength. It doesn’t matter at all if they think you are a pain.
I don’t think they will discharge you in pain but absolutely get it in writing that it is against your will. My blood is boiling on your behalf. I’d be tempted to get a pad and pen and keep your own log of this- date, time, who said what. Ask for full names and job titles. Pals will want to see this.

You absolutely need to complain. I had a horrendous birth with some very crappy care from a consultant and I wish I had complained.

Oh, and like fuck are you too early to be put on a monitor at 26 weeks. I don't believe that at all. My babies' heartbeats and movements were very clear at that stage.

Contractions as severe as yours do need to be monitored carefully, not just dismissed.

Consultants see women day in day out so make generalisations which are necessary but also dangerous. Please call PALS. They can advocate for you. Best thing I ever did when I just wasn't being listened to.

I was in almost the exact same position as the OP when I was pregnant with my twins, in pain, waters broken, scared and completely uninformed as to what was happening to me because even if I could corner a doctor I couldn't get a straight answer out of them. I sat back and put my trust in the doctors and it almost went very wrong so forgive me for trying to advise the OP to push the doctors for better treatment. I wouldn't want any woman to go through what I did.

Slim, no consultant has seen her at all. That is the message I get, and she is still waiting for a doctor of any kind. The one who suggested she should be in hospital was a neonatal intensive care doctor, so not one currently involved with her care.

That is the message I have got.

Have you contacted PALs yet? It was suggested very early in the thread, you could have had someone advocating for you by now if you'd contacted them then. What's your partner doing?

Has the consultant seen you and addressed your concerns? Yak to the ward matron if not and ask they make a note of this request.

• talk, not yak

Op am so sorry how you are being treated.

I agree slimjemima, people mean well and are trying to empathise but they’re just scaring OP further and building the drama and anxiety, I think it’s easy to forget this is a real scared woman going through this via a forum. Some of the accusations of terrible care are completely unfounded given that OP has been hospitalised and monitored for a week already and we have no real medical info to go off, her doctors and medical team do. I appreciate others have been through similar and are trying to help but every situation is different and what happens to one woman won’t necessarily happen to another so it’s well meaning scaremongering. I also think people are underestimating the amount of anxiety Op is experiencing right now, no doubt sleep deprived and exhausted from a week of being in hospital and in pain. I hope you get a resolution OP, but following some of the advice on here (just don’t leave... really? It doesn’t work like that! Patients have a right to decline care but they can’t demand to be hospitalised when there’s no clinical need) won’t get you very far I don’t think. Wait for the consultant/doctor, tell them your fears and listen to their advice. Don’t let what’s been said on here make you approach it aggressively stating you’re not budging.

I have seen doctors last night who checked if I was dilating. That Dr was concerned about early Labour but wanted to wait until I had a scan today. Haven't seen a Dr since pains haven't stopped and worsening symptoms.

@CatsEye99
Absolutely stand your ground if you don't feel well enough to be discharged.

This maddens me so much, why don't they actually listen!!

I went through a very similar situation in my last pregnancy.
Was made to feel like a lunatic in the end. People were rolling their eyes at me and talking down to me.
But I knew things weren't right, and it was proven when my ds made his entrance at 34 weeks, born after one push.
Even in labour they were still saying I was just tightening. I dread to think what could've happened if I had stayed at home.

Can you ask to speak to your own named consultant?

I found different Drs have different views, and I actually have a complaint running with Pals who have said I should've had a clear care plan made and stuck to, instead of being given conflicting advice all of the time.

Hope you're ok

"we have no real medical info to go off, her doctors and medical team do."

I think equally dangerous are the suggestions to just trust in what midwives are saying when it's quite obvious they aren't listening to the ops concerns. It is not 'building drama and anxiety', it is having been in a similar position and knowing that in the NHS as things stand you cannot necessarily assume competent care, and if you have good reason to be worried you need to advocate firmly for yourself. Obviously op can't just refuse to leave, but she can certainly insist on seeing the senior consultant and stating her concerns, and is entitled not to have her pain and fears dismissed as if she is being a drama queen. The medical info that she has had pprom with 26w twins and is in severe pain is clearly enough to know that this is a serious situation with high stakes outcomes, even without specific details.

Some of the accusations of terrible care are completely unfounded given that OP has been hospitalised and monitored for a week already and we have no real medical info to go off, her doctors and medical team do.

Asking OP whether it's bad enough to delay doing someone's EMCS is beyond the pale, and there's no medical information that could make that appropriate.

I’m not trying to scare the op but this is what I have so far

• op is in agonising pain and told they can’t do anything about it
• having to wait two hours for pain relief (and also making the op feel bad for requesting codeine)
• asking for a doctor and midwives say they’ll find out and never come back
• midwives giving contradictory advice (walking when told not to move, baths when they are counter indicated with PPROM)
• higher blood pressure being disregarded as it is in normal range but not normal for op
• refusing to monitor the op as she’s ‘too early’
• appalling emotional blackmail when found in tears as the drs were about to do an emergency section.

And they want to discharge the op who lives an hour away.

I know nothing of PPROMS but I don’t think the op is getting the care she needs.

I’m definitely not trying to scaremonger. You can’t always trust medics to do what’s needed. All the demands for beds and other resources often mean decisions are taken for the wrong reasons. There is enough going on from what the OP has said and her past history, for her to not be discharged while she’s feeling unwell and in a lot of pain.

Of course nobody should accept sub standard care but people scaring the crap out of a vulnerable woman is wrong. OP needs support from online people to help her gain the confidence to ask questions and assert herself, not be given medical advice based on the limited info on here.

OP, take care and don’t be afraid to ask questions of the medical team looking after you.

I know Poison, I don’t mean to accuse anyone of deliberately scaremongering; everyone on the thread has been very kind. I’m just cautious, OP seemed to post in a complete panic initially and I’m not sure many of the posts will have helped her anxiety. I’m sure she’ll be too busy hopefully being seen to and getting the reassurance she needs to check the whole thread anyway though.

I agree the midwife was BU to make the comment she did about the emergency c section absolutely! I think people were alleging poor care before that point though.

Being 'too early to monitor' definitely sets alarm bells ringing! I was put on repeated ctgs (multiple times daily) from 25 weeks.

aarrghh - your post is exactly why advice online shouldn’t be taken as gospel as taking baths after PPROM is not set in stone. Hospitals have different policies. I’m not picking on you, I promise, just highlighting why we need to be cautious. OP is in a vulnerable position and she is, understandably, anxious.

Yes I fully accept that it might be perfectly fine for op to go home, but only once her fears have been listened to and allayed by a senior doctor.

Eh? I didn't mention baths!!

frogsoup I wasn’t talking to you. I was referring to poster aaarrghh.

I mentioned monitoring because it's the bare minimum of what they should be doing to reassure the op that her babies are ok. I got told that I could ask for it whenever I was concerned - that is what responsive patient-centred care in a crisis should look like, not being fobbed off and made to feel like a drama queen. It is this more than anything else that is a pointer to substandard care.