Midwife did a sweep last night without asking

[Katnisnevergreen]

Hi all, I’m just after some advice. I went to the maternity unit last night with bad contractions (am 39 weeks) which had been building over the past few days to every 3.5 mins.
When the midwife was checking to see how dilated I was, it was really painful, like trying to get away painful, and I could really feel her moving around.
When she finished she said ‘I’ve done you a sweep too...’
is this out of order as I didn’t ask or want one?

Mothers are feeling like they’re putting their baby at risk by refusing certain procedures because of the language and demeanour used by the midwives, when in the vast majority of cases that’s not true

Absolutely - there is some dreadful language used around this stuff. Often by other women on mumsnet I am sorry to say. A lot of "well all I wanted was a healthy baby" as if wanting to avoid being horrifically damaged yourself meant you don't care about the baby. Home birth threads are full of it.

I wonder how many medical professionals tell themselves there’s no problem with things like this because nobody’s complained at the time. And how they could be made aware of the longer-term effect this can have on us, that it’s not just “well she didn’t complain immediately so it’s fine.”

Absolutely NOT saying women are in the wrong for not speaking up formally at the time. I understand why it’s often so hard. I didn’t have anything like this done to me but I did feel very much strong-armed into procedures I didn’t want and was trying to refuse, with “well I don’t know if the consultants will let you refuse that” and so on, and I didn’t say anything and then was too shaken up by the birth to raise it afterwards.

WhichEnd

Good for you. That language is endemic.

I had my twins at a big teaching hospital last Feb. I could not bear being on my back or having lots of people in the room surrounding me, unless an emergency.

Every. Single. Appointment.

"I should just warn you, there'll be a lot of people in the room for a twin birth."

Me: "well, I have a history of assault in a clinical setting and I don't think I'd feel safe like that. Unless an emergency develops, I'd prefer if all the paeds staff etc waited outside."

Them: "well I'm just warning you it's likely to be 8-10 people. Lots of women find it very overwhelming so I am just telling you in advance."

Me

Also Riddley yes.

I posted a thread on here when I was feeling suicidal at the end of my pregnancy as they were trying to bully me into giving birth on my back etc. I actually got told by posters that when I was handed my babies I would forget about having been assaulted as a child

I just.... I mean, who the fuck thinks that? Who honestly thinks that forcing a woman to comply with medical procedures that may destroy her mentally is okay bc you "hand" her a baby at the end? As though that was doing me some kind of fucking favour?

I locked myself in a loo and delivered my son myself. No one pinned me on my back, stared at me, examined me against my will or "handed" me anything. I did it on my own because I couldn't trust them.

I cannot bear the “all that matters is a healthy baby” mentality. From many angles, this is totally wrong. I get the sentiment but it completely invalidates and dismisses a woman’s experiences - it’s her birth experience, her becoming a mother, and there’s so much more involved and important than the healthy baby.

Plus, if the baby is not healthy, the implication is that that baby is somehow lesser...

Birth trauma because of caregivers language and practice should not happen. End of story. It matters. Women fucking matter.

Johnny I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. No one should feel that the only way they can avoid assault is to birth unassisted.

I love my chosen profession because I love and believe in women, their strength, rights, autonomy, ability to birth - stories like this tear my heart.

I am a bolshy so and so...but I've never felt so vulnerable and unable to advocate for myself as I was during labour / early new baby stage. A combination of never really having had much to do with hospitals, an unexpectedly prem labour, plus feeling really quite unwell meant that I couldn't speak up for myself - I just wanted to curl into a ball in a dark room, TBH

It took DH realising what was going on, and him getting cross on my behalf for the midwives to start engaging with me properly. I don't know the extent to which this was because he's a man or just because he was so appalled at how I had been treated that they realised that they had been negligent in their care of me and my baby. But I would always say: don't feel guilty if you feel unable to speak up at the time. Have a birthing partner who is willing and able to speak up for you

Being unable to speak up or to make yourself understood with some HCP is an awful feeling. It reminds me of an episode of OBEM where a women was begging for an epidural because of the pain, being fobbed off by the MW - " breath deeply- don't panic". MW goes back to her tea and biscuits. The poor women gives birth to her daughter after a back-to- back labour. She must have suffered. The MW comment was "I suppose we'll be doing this au natural". Shocking.

In my experience the dehumanising experience builds all the way through pregnancy. I think this is why a lot of otherwise confident women end up feeling unable to advocate for themselves.

Its a form of gaslighting imo.

Every time I had a problem during pregnancy I was treated like a child. I was told I wasn't feeling what I was. I was told everything I thought and felt was unimportant.

I hit peak when I felt suddenly unwell and used a doppler and noticed the babies heart rate was very very high about 2 weeks before labour began and so phoned to check and got called into hospital. I got checked out and had to stay in for monitoring for about 12 hours in the end.

The whole time I got told it was my fault for checking...that they didn't support the use of home use heart rate monitors because people get it wrong all the time. I kept asking why they were keeping me in if they hadn't confirmed my finding of elevated heart rate, and they kept saying well yes, you were right...there is a problem worth monitoring...but don't do it again...because you can't be trusted not to get mixed up.

I'm a professional experimental physicist. I've used NMR magnets to deduce protein structure, I've used electron microscopy to deduce the aggregation pathways of disease proteins, Ive used atomic force microscopes, optical microscopes and I've designed laser systems.

I genuinely can hold a doppler instrument against my bump and tell the difference between my heart beat, the babies and gut noises.

But no...they persisted in telling me I couldn't be trusted with it.

I left them with the parting shot that if I did ever think it was MY heart rate at 200 bpm I would indeed not be phoning them...more 999.

@M3lon I had the same when my blood pressure went sky high in pregnancy. I was high risk for several reasons and checked my own bp after feeling unwell with a headache, I can't remember now what it was but it was very high. They brought me in and were only concerned with asking me why I had my own bp machine (my blood pressure had been high pre pregnancy and I had been making efforts to bring it down and wanted to monitor it) and telling me not to check again. They actually asked 'are you a nurse' as if you have to have a nursing degree to press a button on a bp machine. It was very frustrating knowing that something was wrong but having their egos get in the way of proper care.

During labour with dc2 midwife was doing internal exam then said she was going to do a sweep to help things along. I shouted stop. I had group b strep and sweeps shouldn't be given. She looked so annoyed with me but I needed to get her to stop immediately. I don't know why she decided a sweep would be useful at that point either, I gave birth 4 hours later and hadn't been in labour long at that point.

Disempowered is exactly how I felt. One of the reasons I didn't complain or speak to anyone about it was I felt like an ungrateful cow because I had a baby at the end of it all.

I doubted myself too and basically didn't want to make a fuss or offend professionals.

The language we use is interesting and I wonder if women often being socialised to be polite, to put others first and to not make a fuss plays a part.

I wonder if those on the thread telling the OP she's wrong to expect to be asked before a procedure is carried out on her feel the same about all aspects of medical treatment or if its just when it comes to To pregnancy a woman shouldn't be allowed to consent to procedures? Like if their dh had warts removing from his arse and the doctors decided to stick a finger in and do a prostate exam while he was down that area anyway and the bloke was angry would you also tell him he has no right to complain?

Thank you to everyone who left supportive comments after my post, I'm so sorry to every woman who has been treat like this and I'm thankful that the majority of people do think women have the right to consent, those who think they shouldn't can fuck right off.

Sorry not read all the comments but this IS assault. A sweep is not a life saving or emergency procedure and has very low 'success' rates anyway-i put it in my notes that I do not consent to a sweep and the pressure I got to have one was immense but I constantly refused.
Bloody outrageous!

This is horrible and you are so nbu! Pregnant women are routinely treated like children and it is disgusting. I would absolutely complain but I would do it now and tell them you have lost trust in the people who will be caring for you in labour and want assurances that you will be respected when the time comes

That’s absolutely disgraceful, please complain when you feel able.

And all the posters justifying her actions can fuck right off quite frankly.

Some utterly horrendous stories on here

@JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff were there lots of people in there at the end?

M3lon 's post really resonates with me. I struggled to hold my own in declining interventions I didn't want and eventually was effectively threatened with, 'well we'll discharge you from midwife care and you'll have to have these conversations with a consultant'. Hardly a threat if they had bothered finding out anything about me though; I advocate for patients in discussion with consultants all day, every day.

OP, this is assault. Please complain

Personally it really wouldn't bother me, by 39 weeks I wanted my babies out so I would be absolutely fine with this but it's down to the person

Consent and health ethics aren't decided on a person to person basis, and for very good reason.

I don't remember consenting to the epesiotomy with my second other than just get him out, make it stop type generalities. But by that point I don't remember much - too much gas and air! Basically it all hurt. Definitely had express consent to all exams during the induction process, and even though I flinched from every one I wanted it done and over with rather than checking I'm ok - like it hurts, it will stop hurting when it's over, do what you need to do and finish it already...

Nothing about child birth is nice, gentle or dignified, some people can do it easily but I am clearly not one of them.

@randomsabreuse they tried to do one on me, too. Said, 'I'm going to cut you to help the baby out.'

I said something along the lines of 'No, you're not!'

It's a bit worrying that silence would have been taken as consent.

Actually, while I'm here and in case it benefits anyone, you can decline ANY intervention you don't want. It might not be wise for the baby but the pregnant woman is the patient and has bodily autonomy regardless. I went overdue and fought for an ELCS. I had ZERO internal examinations. I'm not saying that's the right course of action for anyone else, but it was for me.

You were having contractions and your waters hadn’t broken perhaps thats why she did the sweep as it made sense. Perhaps you should have asked her. But births aren’t always as clear as the textbook states.
Consent is important, but if you were having contractions it was possibly normal procedure for your situation.

It is never ‘normal procedure’ to carry out a sweep without consent. Consent must always be obtained.

But births aren’t always as clear as the textbook states

Which is exactly why informed choice, consent, and effective communication are so important at every step of the way. It's not okay for a midwife to just go ahead with something because they 'know best'.

You were having contractions and your waters hadn’t broken perhaps thats why she did the sweep as it made sense.

I don't see where having a sweep makes any sense there. Routine sweeps are a first step for inducing labour 40+ wks, pref 41 in order to avoid more active intervention, according to NICE and RCM.