Is this Midwife out of line?

[SistineScreamer]

Curious as to what others would think. My daughter just had her first DC yesterday. She had an elective section and is still in hospital. My daughter is young, she’s 24, Not married (and has no intention to) but been with her DP since they were 16. She’s had some MH issues, stemmed from ex husband of mine. This is all noted in her file and is a manageable, she’s had to come off her medication during the pregnancy because of risks to the baby but she was more than willing to do this. She’s in a private room and not on a ward. All this information is important as I assume this is why she was treated the way she was.

She rang me 30 minutes ago in tears. Telling me one of the midwives assigned to her has been horrible to her. We’ll call her Midwife A.

All this is what she says happened - First, DD had baby in a onsie and bib, midwife A came in and commented that the bib was too big for baby, took baby out of DD’s arms and removed the bib. Even if the bib was too big why completely undermine her like that? Next, DD brought wipes for her face, body etc they were baby brand water wipes as her skin is overly sensitive to anything else. Midwife proceeded to lecture DD that these were wrong and cotton buds must be used with water instead, proceeded to bin wipes then leave the room.

Half an hour later Midwife A came back in to ask DD about her feeding choices. DD was sexually assaulted and does not feel comfortable breastfeeding, her choice. Midwife proceeded to give her the breast is best talk, asking why she wouldn’t consider breastfeeding, basically making her feel like shit for picking formula. DD mentioned she’d purchased a perfect prep machine for the formula (you know the ones that give the perfect shot of hot water at night so you don’t have to faff about with the kettle?) this woman nodded, left the room and came back 15 minutes later with a print out of the perfect prep machine....asking DD to confirm if this was what she was talking about. Nodding and tutting. What the fuck? Even if she wanted to know what DD was talking about, why print it out and bring it to her? Why not look it up herself?

Next issue came with the drip that was in DD’s hand, it was ripping the skin, physically pulling up the skin. She asked Midwife A if she could take it out or change it, to be told no nothing could be done. She’d just have to suck it up. An hour after she was told this another midwife came in, Midwife B, she begged midwife B to take it out and showed her what it was doing to her hand. Midwife B promptly took it out stating that there was no problem. Midwife A came back for her checks, asked DD what happened to the drop. DD explained that midwife B took it out, midwife A mumbled something about how that couldn’t be right and she’d have to check that ‘story’ right away.

DD is still vulnerable after birth, can’t move yet because of the catheter and has to be changed by this woman who she feels uncomfortable with and intimidated by. This woman has to handle her naked, change her sheets and I feel from what she’s saying it’s making her MH worse. She says she feels like Midwife A is talking about her with the other midwife (not B) on duty who she seems friendly with, shared looks, little smirks, off comments.

The looks and such could be DD’s dislike for this midwife raring up. But the rest, is this normal! I feel like she’s over stepped the mark and made my child feel low because of her age and choices. Should we ignore this?

@LadyofTheManners they did start a campaign re Post natal care I believe. But nothing will change as it’s the NHS so what are you going to do about it really?

I don’t use the NHS and never will again. I’ve got private healthcare (not as expensive as you think, for me and my child it’s the equivalent to one takeaway a month), so I see private GPs. The difference in care when you pay for it is staggering.

The only thing I have to use the NHS for is the actual birth as I have sections and I can’t afford to pay for that privately. I’m due in few weeks and I’m shitting myself about the post natal ward, I’ve had two horrible experiences with midwives.

I’ve had a private midwife through the pregnancy and for at home after who is lovely, again, she has to be really as I’m paying her. If she was a cow I’d kick up merry hell with the company she’s with, and she would probably lose her job with them. That’s the difference. She will come to the ward with me (covid rules permitting) so hopefully the hospital midwives won’t be such cows.

You’re doing the right thing op. Some women on here just absolutely want other women to suffer, it’s bizarre. You can guarantee if it was their own child being treated like this they would feel completely differently.

@Billyjoearmstrong is the private midwife as part of your private healthcare or did you hire her separately? Interested in case of a second DC as I didn’t have a very pleasant postnatal experience with DC1

@SistineScreamer your daughter is lucky to have you sticking up for her! The situations sounds very stressful and I really hope the ward manager takes the incident seriously!
I hope you can all get home soon to enjoy the new baby!

I'll never forget the midwife who gave me the dirtiest look when ds was lying in his crib in a dirty nappy. She screeched at me "baby needs changing mum!!!",
But I'd had an epidural and literally couldn't move my legs.
Not that that counted for anything in her book..

I could take it, I was older and wiser. Your dd is young and more vulnerable, I'd definitely complain.

@June628 no, the only thing that U.K. private providers don’t pay for is maternity, hence me giving birth in the NHS hospital.

I paid for the midwife. It cost £5,000 for all antinatal care (at my home, lots more appointments than NHS ones and tailored to suit me, lasting as long as I want and she’s on the phone 24/7 if needed, I have my bloods taken at home), accompanying me as my birth partner for the section and post natal care for 6 weeks.

5k was a big layout - but we just didn’t do anything for two years before and saved, so no holidays, days out, nights out.

It’s worth it to be treated like a human being - that’s how badly I’ve been treated in the past (just wish to god we were better paid so we could have saved more and had a private hospital instead!)

She’s not an independent midwife working on her own, I booked through a nationwide company (pm if you want details).

With covid it’s been a godsend. My care plan hasn’t changed, there have been no appointments missed, she comes to my home in full PPE. She’s also an advocate the hospital has to listen to - she still does some NHS work too as well as the private.

I know it’s not an option for all, and believe me we had to sacrifice things to afford it, but another pregnancy and postnatal period of being treated like a thick, ignorant slab of meat would have been too much for me.

It's such a shame one bad midwife does stick in your mind.
OTOH I'll never forget day 3 after ds1 was born, I was struggling to breastfeed and feeling very alone in a ward with 13 other beds (big old place).. I was sitting up beside the bed trying to get ds to latch on when a senior midwife with a small group beside her came up to me, she proceeded to tell them about ds's weight etc and she said "baby feeding beautifully" then helped me latch him on. I felt absolutely wonderful and it totally spurred me on, just that little bit of encouragement. I'm still grateful to her.

@ssd I had that last time as well. Dd was screaming and I couldn’t move to get her. After I’d pressed the buzzer for the third time, I was just barked at and told to pick her up. Then a ‘nicer’ HCA came in and warned me that the hosptal look out for things like leaving a baby to cry to see if you are coping. So I explained I still couldn’t move and asked her to pass her to me. She said she couldn’t as she was too busy and left. She was sat right by the cot

Luckily the lady in the next bed could walk (but only just), struggled out of bed herself, passed me Dd and gave me a hug (and said what bitches they all were).

I was also called ‘disgusting’ for haemorrhaging the first time I stood up after my first section and was told by a midwife ‘I’ve got a good mind to get you a mop and bucket to clean this mess up yourself, you dirty girl’. They left the floor and bed covered in blood all day and only changed it when my Dh came into visit hours later and kicked up a stink at the mess.

I was 22 that time, married, own home etc. They also refused to believe it. In my notes, I later read that I was ‘insisting’ on calling my boyfriend my husband

Slight tangent. I gave birth in the late 80s, I have never heard of a newborn bib.

My MWs were fine, the only time I felt ignored was when 2 of them talked about engagement rings across me in the delivery room, made me feel I was just a body.

@TheSparklyPussycat they aren't actually newborn bibs, just bibs that would fit a newborn/small baby (hard to find!)

I was an emotional wreck after every one of my babies births. It's a highly emotional time, add that to already having mh problems and a history of sexual abuse make your daughter very vulnerable. This midwife was totally lacking in empathy for your daughter and her behaviour was totally out of order. Your daughter is lucky to have you op I hope she is feeling better today. You did the right thing to complain bullies exist in every professions she sounds like she saw your dd as an easy target. Hope your daughter can come home soon and is able to put this experience behind her and enjoy her little baby. Congrats BTW :) x

I mean I have never heard of putting a bib on a newborn.

My midwives were nearly all nice. They each had different advice, I took the advice that fitted my own ideas

It sounds as if there a lot more midwives in those days. A lot has changed, I was in for a week, which was standard. When I was admitted for induction as was DS was overdue there was actually a smoking room for us to use...

I am shocked at how some people are commenting who are saying this is ok. No woman who has just given birth should be treated this way, abuse victim or not. It is unacceptable.
Giving birth is one of the most vulnerable times, and women need support.
I am a big advocate of breastfeeding - but as with anything that women do with their own bodies it needs to be a choice. These midwives have way overstepped.
I hope the complaint helps them reflect.

Hope your DD is feeling rested today OP. You were right to complain, it sounds like she had made some assumptions about your DD for whatever reason and that's not on.
Have you contacted DDs MH team. I have good friends who work in perinatal MH who have caused merry hell on mat wards due to appalling care of their patients and assumptions that the new mums aren't fit parents, they will be on your DDs side.

As for people asking why so many MWs are shit and blaming direct entry. I'm not sure thats it. I had a generally wonderful birth and the ward was stacked with newly qualified MWs as it was over Xmas so all the older ones with kids had it off. Most were in their early 20s and they were amazing. There was one awful midwife who reduced me to a sobbing mess part way through my induction and she was an older midwife who had trained as a nurse first- she told me as I am nurse. She was an utter cunt and I still feel angry about the way she treated me, I wanted to leave hospital then and there so I have complete sympathy for your DD. But when the younger midwives took over again I was treated wonderfully.

All sounds very standard conversation from midwives to be honest . She is obviously very sensitive and vulnerable so it has upset her .

@oohnicevase

A midwife throwing nappies away? Pressuring to breastfeed?

Please raise your standards and not see this as acceptable.

I'd say it's fairly standard to pressure you to Bf , I didn't want to with either of mine and they went on about it , had posters everywhere , sent me the bf nurse . I'm very strong minded and I just calmly told them to leave me alone and I made my decision months ago .. they aren't doing anything wrong , they are following the guidelines from the government that it's better to bf 🤷‍♀️

@oohnicevase

Better for who? Because it isn’t always better all round.

I am very strong willed but even after 7 days of pressure I was beginning to crack.

There shouldn’t be any pressure, simply informed choices that are respected.

A woman has been pregnant (on average) nearly 9 months, she will surely have decided before the baby is born whether she wants to bf or not.
I think it is fair enough to ask if there are any specfic concerns that they could help with, but 7 days of pressure - f* that.

I agree , I didn't bf and didn't want to .. I told them to leave me alone . Just saying it was normal pressure IME 7 years apart .

@oohnicevase

Then you should be helping to remove the idea that it is considered normal; because quite clearly it shouldn’t be.

Just because it’s normal or standard midwife behaviour doesn’t mean it’s acceptable or should be tolerated.

I wanted to reply, because I used to be a midwife and I am also a mother of two children (I had just turned 21 with first and 25 with second) and suffered pnd with my first. I wanted to try and approach this from both sides and maybe offer a more balanced approach.

I have worked with midwives that could be like this on a bad day, so I definitely do see where your dd maybe coming from. I think it's like all women generally - you have those that like to help and empower and those that like to drag down and belittle.

I highly doubt it's because of age - 24 isn't really a young mother (though perhaps depends on area to an extent), she will have seen women much younger have children. You also wouldn't get far being a judgemental midwife these days.

It does sound like she's approached your dd in the wrong way and not thought about her MH issues and if so that's very wrong and she should have taken a completely different approach - however, postnatally, you can be very hormonal and may not be seeing thing reasonably - so that is something to bear in mind, there are two sides to every story.

With regards to the bib - I have never seen a midwife comment on the size of a bib (surely most newborns are swamped in their clothes anyway 🤣), I would maybe make a comment about taking off after feeding and burping (more so because the wet bib can make them cold) and not putting them down for a nap with it on. It's hard to say about the scenario with snatching the baby, as it could have been an absent minded thing from the midwife, that your dd took too personally - she may have been trying to help, rather than making your dd get up etc. If she's tired?

If she chucked the wipes in the bin, that's bad, I just can't imagine a midwife doing that to be honest. Surely if they were for the baby, they could have been kept until a later date? Did your dd say anything to correct her when this happened?

Breastfeeding is a hard one and this is what I think triggered my pnd, has I struggled. You have to understand though that lots of things to do with breasts can be seen as 'personal' so if it hadn't been documented properly in her notes, the midwife may not have been aware. Take a woman with flat nipples, that thinks she can't breastfeed, she may tell a midwife she can't because of personal reasons, but actually after a bit of probing she shares her concerns about her flat nipples and the midwife can help her find different ways to get around this. Do you see what I mean? I do think that when a woman says no, that should be it, but I do know down midwives take is further.

I do think you need to judge the situation carefully to make sure you aren't being over bearing, but at the same time, you are there for her if needed and can stand up for her if needed

There should be no standard pressure to breastfeed when someone has been sexually assaulted and is undergoing treatment because of it...

I bottle fed both of mine and was never pressured to breastfeed
Conversation literally went MW - "so are you formula or breastfeeding?" Me - "formula" MW - "Ok, lovely" then proceeded to give me advice on making up bottles safely etc. This was both times and my youngest was born 2 years ago. I think I mentioned with my second that I was planning on using a perfect prep and the MW did tell me about making sure I used it correctly but certainly wasn't rude about it. I think it's disgusting that some MW's pressure mums to breastfeed, it is absolutely none of their business.

OP I think the way your DD has been treated by that midwife is awful, she had no right throwing the baby wipes away or snatching baby from her arms over a bib FGS.