Low risk women/better birth facilities - unfair?

[Glassofshloer]

When DD was a baby we attended a breastfeeding appointment at my local stand-alone birth centre and WOW! To say it was gorgeous is an understatement - double bed, huge whirlpool bath thing, fairy lights and bouncy balls in every room. Looked like the Ritz compared to the tiny, dimly lit room on the CDU where I gave birth. Just a bed and some wall stickers of flowers

AIBU to think this is unfair on high risk/Consultant led women? And that we all deserve equal facilities, high risk or not? Fully prepared to be told IABU!

@HairsprayBabe

Many MLUs aren't open at the moment at all due to funding and staff shortages, so some MLUs are not being used because there is no staff.

The problem is two fold, firstly far too many women are labeled high risk unnecessarily and "can't" use the MLU but then go on to have a perfectly normal uncomplicated vaginal delivery. Secondly the maternity system is underfunded so too many women aren't getting the care they need at the right time and end up transferring when they might not want/or need to.

Yep. I will be classed as high risk as I will be using IVF (due to being a same sex couple). But barring a multiple pregnancy there is no reason for me to be classed as high risk nowadays.

I was just frustrated that being high risk, there wasn't a proper chair/ comfy chair for my poor husband to sit in (plenty of room for it) but the lower risk delivery suites had sofas and comfy chairs!

@glassofshloer if you do have another birth I would absolutely speak to a head consultant midwife who can put things like that in place for you.

Birth is obviously unpredictable and carries risks it doesn't mean you shouldn't be treated like you are incapable of making your own choices in a comfortable environment.

If you are uncomfortable in fighting your own corner for the birth you want you can contact AIMS who will support you and your hospital trust should be able to provide a PALS advocate to help support you in consultant meetings if your partner is unable to be their.

I would also like to remind any poor lady who was forced to undergo induction alone during the pandemic that RCoG reccomended that all pregnant women should be allowed one birth partner at all stages of her pregnancy journey for support regardless of covid restrictions. If this happened to you you should absolutely complain about your treatment to your trust.

Women need to be better informed that they can choose which hospital they go to & can refuse to be consultant led. Too often they are treated like dumb animals, told that the experts know best & not to ask questions.

@Hardbackwriter

I agree - they showed us both the MLU and the labour ward rooms during my antenatal class when I was pregnant with my first and it was so dispiriting since I knew I had to go to the grotty and grim one!

What really pissed me off in the end was that they had been so insistent in advance that I couldn't even think about a water birth or the MLU because I was high-risk so would need lots of extra monitoring - and then in the end they refused to believe I was in established labour, sent me home once and then when I came back left me alone in a triage ward for two hours, and only examined me and realised I was actually giving birth 30 minutes before I gave birth (90 minutes after I'd told them I needed to push), so almost the whole labour was unmonitored anyway.

I had my second in a pool in the MLU and while apparently everyone else is too high-minded to care I actually did like giving birth in a comfortable, welcoming and calm room, frivolous flibbertigibbet that I am. I liked actually receiving some care in labour even more.

Why on earth might you think you were in labour ? What a silly thing to think at 9 months pregnant ! I'm glad I ended up in the local hospital. I was booked in the MLU, 35 miles away, drove there in the middle of the night at 11pm. The MW could not have been more fucking patronising if she'd tried, seemed astounded that a woman 10 days overdue might think she was in labour. She made us go home. Even though there was nobody else there. She said that the baby would appear "not before 48 hours"

6 hours later I delivered within 10 minutes of parking the car at the labour ward 2 miles from home that I tried so hard to avoid. The MW was lovely, took great care of me and I was home within 6 hours.

I took great glee in phoning the MLU abd telling that patronising cow that she was wrong 😂.

11 years later I'm still annoyed 🤣

I was consultant led, so gave birth in a regular maternity wing, but the facilities were great. The room I gave birth in had an ensuite, new built in birthing pool, glittery disco ball light pendant, everything. Maybe it's LHA dependent.

I think it varies more by postcode tbh. I was high risk, was in a nicely decorated room, with its own pool, mood lighting etc.

I think a lot of it depends on where you live.

I was over 35 and ivf pregnancy but was still low risk.

I have experienced both - DS1 was born on the MLU (although not with a birthing pool as one wasn't available when I was in labour) and DS2 in the regular delivery suite (I was induced with him and was higher risk due to gestational diabetes. They are next door to each other in the same hospital. I can honestly say in my case I preferred the delivery suite. The rooms were bigger and the only real difference was fewer fancy lighting options.

I've had one baby in the labour ward and one in a birth centre. I had the same midwife both times.

The labour ward room was the same size as the birth centre. It was painted magnolia rather than pink but the flooring was the same.

Labour ward had a pool available but I wouldn't have been able to use it that time.

The main difference was all the medical equipment being on show rather than behind a cupboard. That made sense though- in labour ward it's more likely that you'd need it and need it quickly.

As long as DC and I come out of it the other side, and I wasn’t in excruciating pain, I wouldn’t care how or where it was done.

I was sent to labour ward with high blood pressure, then ended up in theatre. All I cared about was safely getting the baby out, and me not bleeding to death.

@Shmithecat2

I was consultant led, so gave birth in a regular maternity wing, but the facilities were great. The room I gave birth in had an ensuite, new built in birthing pool, glittery disco ball light pendant, everything. Maybe it's LHA dependent.

Wow. Which hospital was this if I can ask..?

@Glassofshloer

Wow. Which hospital was this if I can ask..?

Sure - Salisbury District Hospital in Wiltshire. I genuinely had the best experience there. Facilities, staff, ante and post natal care was amazing.

[quote Shmithecat2]@Glassofshloer

Wow. Which hospital was this if I can ask..?

Sure - Salisbury District Hospital in Wiltshire. I genuinely had the best experience there. Facilities, staff, ante and post natal care was amazing.[/quote]
Another glowing review of Salisbury! I was born in SDH myself (back then it was Odstock I think), and all my family still give birth there now, but I moved away 😭 typical!

@Glassofshloer

I still call it Odstock 😊 It really was great. My midwife for the delivery was an absolute legend. Even the porters and night time security patrol were great - made me tea and toast in the middle of the night that I stayed. Didn't like my consultant much tbh, but that's my only quibble.

I gave birth on a Consultant-led Unit and I still think you're expecting too much. The rooms are designed to function well in emergencies. The double beds used in MLUs are not suitable for high risk women. They need hospital beds that can be easily adjusted and worked around in an emergency situation.

I hope that I'm able to give birth on a MLU next time around, but I don't really care all that much if it doesn't work out that way.

Yes I think it's unfair. The birth centre in my hospital was quiet and peaceful, every room had a pool, and the recovery rooms were private, en suite and had a big bed. The labour ward had people barging in my room every 10 minutes to get stuff that was unrelated to me, a broken pool, and afterwards I had to recover from a long traumatic labour on a shared ward with shared toilets that were also being used by random men (other women's partners).

The difference is understandable due to budget constraints but it feels incredibly unfair. Surely the women who have traumatic births and need a longer hospital stay are more in need of a private recovery room than women who had a relatively straightforward birth and can go home quickly.

@DinoWoman

I gave birth on a Consultant-led Unit and I still think you're expecting too much. The rooms are designed to function well in emergencies. The double beds used in MLUs are not suitable for high risk women. They need hospital beds that can be easily adjusted and worked around in an emergency situation.

I hope that I'm able to give birth on a MLU next time around, but I don't really care all that much if it doesn't work out that way.

But MLU mums can quickly become emergencies as well, as I keep saying a lot of first time mums choose MLU and they have absolutely zero idea how they will labour. They seemingly manage in the odd emergency with their lovely double beds otherwise I assume they wouldn’t accept first time mums.

I suspect the bed thing is because it makes it easier for the staff to surround you with drips rather than because of red light emergencies?

But MLU mums can quickly become emergencies as well, as I keep saying a lot of first time mums choose MLU and they have absolutely zero idea how they will labour. They seemingly manage in the odd emergency with their lovely double beds otherwise I assume they wouldn’t accept first time mums.

They transfer them at the slightest hint that they might need more intervention, they don't continue to trying to provide treatment there. And those beds are for afterwards, aren't they - you're not supposed to be labouring on them? At the MLU I used there is no bed at all - the whole room is designed to discourage you from lying down flat during labour.

I'm generally very much on your side, OP, but I think you probably are overestimating a bit just how spa-like a MLU is! I know they look a bit like they are in all the promotional pictures but I think like a lot of the NHS maternity provision there's a bit of a gap between the glossy pictures and promises and what women actually get. My birth on the MLU was nicer than my one on labour ward - though a lot of that was to do with it just being a much easier birth, like most second births - but it wasn't quite such an enormous gap as I think you're assuming.

I suppose. I just haven’t seen anything to convince me that better facilities wouldn’t be used & appreciated on CDU as well as MLU. There seems to be an assumption that all CDU mums are wired up on beds when a lot of them are in there for overly cautious reasons, or due to things like age/BMI etc.

From previous posts it also seems it would save money by decreasingly the need for instrumental deliveries, epidurals etc.

Surely the women who have traumatic births and need a longer hospital stay are more in need of a private recovery room than women who had a relatively straightforward birth and can go home quickly
I agree. Birth is inherently personal no matter how you do it. It’s wired into us to seek a quiet dark place, the same as animals do. And you need more privacy than you do with any other procedure. I’d be perfectly happy to walk past other people’s visitors with a bleeding arm but I felt massively ashamed to do it with blood running down my legs. Women need privacy after giving birth, if you can go home that’s not an issue but if you need to stay then there should be private rooms.

I picked up on the bed thing. I think one of the problems I have with the room set up in my case was there was one bed and one chair. The implication was very clear that I was supposed to get in? On? The bed. But I had no need to get in a bed. I wasn’t ill, sick or tired. The bed was high up, meaning my legs dangled off the edge. And it’s position in the middle of the room meant nothing else could be put in it other than the single chair. So I was basically perched on the side of it uncomfortably for no reason. The non-patient got the (small, wooden with a plastic lilac seat pad) chair because they weren’t allowed to sit on the bed, but I’d have much preferred a chair myself.

I never used the bed as anything other than a very uncomfortable chair because there was nowhere else to sit and never used a bed in any other labours. I know hospitals are very bed focused but in practical terms, for a room not being used for sleeping, does there actually need to be a bed at all?

@PiesNotGuys exactly. When I was in the CDU, before I was put on the drip I wanted to walk around, bounce on a ball, have a nice warm bath. Not lie motionless on a bed with nothing to distract me from the pain. I find it mad that CDU women are expected to lie motionless for most of their labour yet people wonder why they have a higher rate of instrumental/CS delivery.