To expect a bit of aftercare as a brand new mum?!

[QueenOfThePumpkins]

My lovely twins were born in mid February, a month early but generally well. They lost a bit too much weight to begin with and we had a week long stay in hospital.

Since lockdown, other than vaccinations we have had no input at all from health visitor, GP, or... Anyone. No idea what their accurate weights are, though I've had a go with the bathroom scales. I have a history of anxiety and depression and was always worried about PND, but thankfully I am feeling pretty happy just now and we are all coping well. Nobody at all has asked about my wellbeing. There is a health visitor helpline, but they were really unhelpful when I called for some feeding advice. I worry that if something was amiss then nobody would know, as I am so inexperienced and nobody else sees my babies other than DH.

Of course I feel very lucky to have had my babies before all the madness really started, but I really expected to at least have someone check up on us. My point is, I really worry for other new mums who aren't coping well, and all the babies that may be vulnerable and going under the radar. Is it just my area or is this happening all over?

I had a visit each time once with the midwife. Then HV took order -depends on area. I had lots of support with one of mine -but health wise in a bad way (me) after c sections etc

It’s really disturbing to read that there is such a lack of aftercare, and that’s it’s not really excused by covid. When I had my DC nearly 20 years ago I had visits and often went to see the health visitor.
So a baby could be born, taken home and not seen for up to a year! Anything could happen to that child in these months.

Reading all these comments, and certainly from my own experience it seems that sadly postnatal care is a bit of a postcode lottery and that shouldn't be the case.

When I had my LB (April 2018) I had great postnatal care (Lived in London Borough of Barnet) I had 2 home midwife visits and 2 HV home visits and further support was there if needed (both with health visitor and lots of suggestions for breastfeeding support locally).

My HV was the one who spotted my PND and made all the referrals to get me the help I needed (Weekly homestart volunteer visits for almost 5 months) in comparison a friend who only lived 20 mins away but was in a different borough was literally pushed out the hospital door, saw her community midwife when baby was 10 days old and told about the HV drop ins and that was it.

My only complaint was my own 6 week GP review, that was a bit of a waste of time, there was no question as to how I was coping, didn't even have my section scar checked it was all about my LB and I see that often this is the case.

I really feel for new mums going through this now, even more so with all the cuts they make to postnatal care and support. Xx

I was exactly the same, twins one month early and a week long stay in hospital. They lost weight in the beginning as my anti natal class said feed every three hours or when they cried and no one said prem babies are too tired to cry and I needed to wake them up to feed every two hours. I had one home visit and I sent to gp surgery once or twice for a weigh in.

I’m in Scotland and other than than 2 home visits I didn’t have any aftercare. Baby wasn’t weighed either, I was told if I wanted her weighed I’d need to take her to the drop in weight clinic 15 minutes drive away.

I got one follow up visit and then you had to attend mother and baby clinic But my mother and my Gran were the best help I had, and my dad used to weigh the little cherubs on his fishing scales. My grand parents lived on a farm and my son used to sleep in her wicker linen basket. Happy days.

My niece and a friend both had their babies at New Year, first time mum and 3rd child.
I have obviously watched their progress with interest especially as my friend had CV in March.
We have mainly talked about the lack of that intense experience of grandparents and siblings etc being involved in the baby’s life and how hard that has been for all parties.

I was interested when I saw that Woman’s Hour was addressing the topic of having a baby in lockdown
I haven’t listened yet. I think they may be covering this all week

Sounds exactly like my experience with DD in 2017. After the 10 day HV checkup and 6 week doctors checkup, we were pretty much left to it until she was about 14 months and had her 1 year check. We could go to weighing clinics and ask a health visitor in person if we needed help, but I found them generally very unhelpful or contradictory. The only thing different in lockdown would be that they cant do weighing clinics - although mine said if anyone was concerned about weight loss they could bring scales out to you to do it yourself

It's a shame, but there's a pandemic so you're going to have to muddle through. If your babies seems active, eating okay, sleeping enough then they're fine.
There's always your Gp if you have actual concerns about them.
The HV we saw post baby was useless - there's not much they can do unless you really need help. She stuffed a DV leaflet at me and went ( no DV concerns BTW).

I had my children in the 1980s, DD one week in hospital, I hated it and wanted to go home but in hindsight see that it was intended to be supportive
DS home the same day, far better and I coped much more easily but that was because I wasn’t terrified of breaking him as I had been with DD!!

If we want improved maternity services we have to pressure government and vote in those who see society as a worthwhile investment not just an opportunity for profit!

I didnt have twins, but after having my DD in 2018 I was just left. I had a traumatic birth but no doc or HV ever asked me anything. I had no support system bar DH who worked 12 hour days (my family lives abroad), and over 16 weeks I slowly slipped into PND which developed into post natal psychosis. I completely lost myself. My DH had no idea what to do so ignored it hoping it would go away. I had nobody. I cracked at 16 weeks and then went to the doc (who was great I have to say) and had one phone call from a mental health service and that was it. I dragged myself out of it. Now I am pregnant on DC2 and have had a phone call from a midwife and my scan. I am 17 weeks. Thats it. I guess next time I am on my own too.

Post natal care doesnt exist in my opinion. We go through hell, and we do it alone. It's awful.

Congratulations on your twins! YANBU, seems post natal care is substandard in a lot of the uk judging by the posts on here.

A lot of essential healthcare has been withdrawn as a result of lockdown and it's unacceptable. I know medical colleagues are worried about an imminent public health crisis due to fears re accessing healthcare. At the very least you should have had telephone support to check on yours and the babies well being post partum physical and emotional.

Re the lack of input from health visitors having worked closely with them when I worked in child mental health they're run off their feet dealing with safeguarding unfortunately which means the important but "routine" stuff gets overlooked. Sadly a lot of mums who seem to be quietly coping are also quietly coping with pnd on their own. 😕

YANBU, postnatal care was crap here even before covid, I dread to think of the state of it at the moment.

I had my twins 15 years ago. They were prem and in SCBU. Also had no support after they came home, the only concession being that a gp agreed to do a house visit for something as they weren’t supposed to leave the house for a couple of weeks after being home. It seems not much has changed...

@daisy169 I had to call my surgery 5 times before I was given an appointment for the vaccinations. She's finally had the 8 week ones at 12 weeks old, at one point the receptionist told me to stop calling as they couldn't offer an appointment and that they would call me.
Im surprised people think that it's not covid related, it definitely is in my area. I had my son in 2017 and I had lots of support from HV team, I live in one of the most deprived areas of the country and there's always been lots of support and money invested in children's services.

As for the poster who asked what I expect them to do. I'd like my GP surgery to take me seriously when I express concerns about my child's weight gain, not tell me that they don't have a centile chart to hand (Google!?) and that my anxiety is nothing, probably just because of covid and staying inside.
As a STM I feel very confident in my parenting already but it's still extremely isolating this time with lockdown thrown in.

I had 2 home visits with my first 19 years ago. None with my second, a home birth, in fact because he was born at the weekend the gp called on Monday morning to see if he looked ok And that was the extent of his newborn checks. With my last I saw no one after bringing her home until her 2 yr check. The first was weighed religiously at clinic every other week and I met up with other mums. The other two were never weighed or checked because I wasn’t invited to antenatal classes so never met anyone else having a baby at the same time and their red books are empty. There was one questionnaire about pnd with my first and after that no one ever asked about me.

Congratulations on your twins I had my dc3 15 days ago via csection and my aftercare has been totally different than with my older children and due entirely to COVID according to the professionals. I had a midwife come out on day 2 and 5 to check my wound (they wouldn’t touch me and wore full PPE) and asked me to weigh the baby. I had a health visitor visit at day 14. Again she wore full PPE, didn’t touch the baby, asked if I’d had previous PND (I hadn’t) then said she would not be following up and he was effectively discharged now from health visitor follow up unless I was concerned and to weigh him myself on bathroom scales. With my others the day 14 check had been extensive and there was regular follow up with a breast feeding HCA if needed. I am in England but the care this time (antenatal and postnatal) has been much reduced due to COVID.

I had my baby in August last year and whilst the postnatal care wasn’t ideal it’s clear that covid has truly fucked any remnant of quality care that remained.
No weighing clinics, no breastfeeding group, no buggy walks, no twin / multiple support groups, no hv contact at all.

Absolutely postcode lottery sometimes within the same city.

My city has a really good support network for breastfeeding mums (who now do online latch on groups and Skype help) so I was really fortunate.

My midwife appointments on my last baby were bad compared to my other two, I had a different midwife each time so had to go over all complications again and again, tests were cancelled based on different opinions and i went from 28 weeks to 4 days overdue without getting an appointment. They also gave bad advice after I had DD3 of where she had lost 9% weight - high but in the norm and they wanted me to express and top up an entire feed after every nursing session. I’ve breastfeed two other babies at this point so I know this is impossible and would risk mastitis from over production so essentially they wanted me to top up with formula which for nursing carried bottle confusion for baby. Basically they wanted me off their service by getting DD3 to regain as quickly as possible, speaking to bf peer supporters this was apparently the new norm in my city. Absolute shame that this is what aftercare is now.

Your not wrong that women and babies will be falling through the cracks.

That's awful!

I had my last one in 2014, in London, but my midwife visited quite a few times after I've had a baby. As a standard. Didn't matter that I had a older child.

Looks like you're doing great though, congratulations

Echoing the postcode lottery - I had my twins 19 mths ago and found post natal care to be great.

Tamba (now called twins Trust) have lots of support and helplines available. Keep trying the helpline (particularly if different people man it each day)
Also lots of great twins groups on FB (Mums of multiples is my favourite)

Also you're very welcome to message if I can help at all. There's another thread on pregnancy (I think) for a mum to be with twins asking for advice and support

Covid 19, has modified postnatal care a lot. I gave birth a month ago and I’m lucky that this was my third baby. Midwife came once and I went to them a week later, then we were discharged over the phone the following week. They couldn’t discharge me earlier because his cord hadn’t fallen off.

What surprised me were the health visitors. I only had one over the phone appointment. Baby was born slightly early at 35 weeks and needed few days at nicu. My auntie who gave birth at same gestation at 2014 was told to get daughter weighted weekly until her due date. But I only got one phone call. I may also been spoiled by the care I got last time, where a health visitor came weekly to check on & baby who was also weighed weekly by her. He was born at 33 weeks and had lost lot of weight while in nicu so maybe he ticked more boxes or my last London bough was/ is better.

Aww OP, that's rotten. So sorry. Many congratulations on the birth of your twins

I'm really shocked by some of these accounts, particularly from the mothers of twins or prem babies, and hose suffering from PND. I know Covid will have affected things, bur it sounds like provision f services was dreadful before that.
My boys are grown-up now, but even back in the 90's, things were much better, although services were being cut even then- our local hospital cut the dedicated homebirth team in the early 00"s, despite years of protests. I just squeezed in before they did, and the midwife care I had was superb, both ante and postnatal.
I'm so sorry for the absence of help available now, it must be so hard.

That must feel so anti-climatic, when I come to think about it x