To say this pissed me off about my booking appointment ?

[chattycaterpillar]

I had a pregnancy booking appointment recently, and was talking to a friend about this yesterday, and she agreed this equally pissed her off about her's too, ( she had hers 12 months ago in the same NHS trust).

The actual medical questions were almost skimmed over, ( I wasn't asked if I had any medication allergies, even though I have a serious allergy to doxycycline). But the amount of nosy, social questions asked to "judge," your suitability to parent was ridiculous.

Examples on the proforma list included:

• How long have you been with your partner ? ( Yes, it is a long-term relationship so wasn't an issue for me, but my friend's child was conceived after a short fling and she didn't want to be answering exactly how long it was).

• What is your highest level qualification/ are you educated to degree level ? ( I'm educated to degree level, but interested in the medical relevance of this. Imagine getting asked that at any other medical appointment ...)

• Are you employed ? Is it full time work, what do you do for work ? What does your partner do for work ? ( Why on earth is it medically relevant what my partner does as his job ? )

• Does your partner have any other children ? ( No, but again, not medically relevant...)

• Do you own or rent your property ? ( Why, do you want to take a look at my mortgage deeds....)

Seemed to be a lot more interested in asking a list of nosy, intrusive questions than either a) a serious physical health condition I have that could impact the birth, or b) my medication allergies.

I'm just trying to work out in what other medical scenario this would be appropriate...

@chattycaterpillar

But *@Dysco*, I'm basing this on the opinions of people who say it has upset them. My friend dropped out of her uni course at 19 as she was, ( at the time), in an abusive relationship with a horrible older man. She saw the sense to dump him at 21, so when she was pregnant at 25 he wasn't an issue. She is however completely literate and has no issues reading information. Dropping out of uni is however a very sensitive issue for her, yet also irrelevant to her pregnancy.

Surely you can see how in her case asking about dyslexia/ reading ability would have been less upsetting ?

Many people won’t be diagnosed or even understand what a diagnosis is, or means.

You’re coming at this from a position of ignorance such as; your not so funny joke about being related. It’s extremely common in some cultures and has serious implications for the health of a child.

Some of you are fortunately enough not to have regular medical appointments and it shows. At most consultant appointments, I get asked; what job do I do, how many hours do I work and who do I live with etc. I

[quote MyDcAreMarvel]**@toomuchlaundry* you do realise when your DC is at school there will be things written about them on the school safeguarding database, some of which may seem trivial* I home educate , shocking how many people are willing to allow such state involvement with their own children even before they are born.[/quote]
Never bothered me - have nothing to hide

@Parker231 Never bothered me - have nothing to hide that’s a very low bar to have.

I had my booking recently and wasn’t asked any of these questions, they asked partners name and if I wanted to put him on the book.

They ask if you’ve any children as they need to know previous pregnancy details and birth details for growth charts and previous health in pregnancy issues.

They asked family history well medical
of partner and what nationality question for me.

Never asked anything that you mention in the OP and asked all about my medical history in luang allergies. Are you sure that they asked all of this stuff? I have had lots of pregnancies (oldest is 19 and have number 7 on the way) not ever been asked those things in any pregnancy.

Why are you taking it some personally, its an essential part in determining support fore those that may require it!

I do think it's a worthwhile thing to do as it will pick up on some women who need extra support. I thought everyone in my area had a cigarette breathalyser test thing at their booking in, I found out 2 years later that none of my local mum friends had had that - I've never smoked in my life, but she must have decided I was lying about being a non-smoker.

My dm died 2 years before I had my child. This meant a hv came to my house pre birth (again, I assumed everyone had this locally) and questioned me at length about how I feel about not having a mum. I wasn't expecting it and it was awful and not done in the best way. However, I do think it could pick up on people who would otherwise slip through the net.

@MyDcAreMarvel do you think schools shouldn’t note safeguarding concerns? Schools worry when certain children go off role because they know their parents want their children off the radar for the wrong reasons

I was more annoyed at how the midwife assumed my answers to questions like alcohol use, drug use, domestic abuse, etc. Lots of comments like ‘that will be no” and and “I can tell that isn’t a problem” the first time I’d met her. While I didn’t have any drug or alcohol dependency issues I was in a horrible relationship, which got worse while I was pregnant and when baby was small. If she had given me half a moment to consider my response she might have picked up on something instead of shutting me down.

that’s a very low bar to have.

It really isn’t.

I suppose you believe that higher educational levels = no risk factors

@Kennykenkencat

I don't think anything regarding educational level. I was simply stating that the purpose of the question is to identify known risk factors. A person can have multiple risk factors, or none at all. It's an exercise to identify those with multiple risk factors and thus a high risk pregnancy and birth.

@hugr

I suppose you believe that higher educational levels = no risk factors

@Kennykenkencat

I don't think anything regarding educational level. I was simply stating that the purpose of the question is to identify known risk factors. A person can have multiple risk factors, or none at all. It's an exercise to identify those with multiple risk factors and thus a high risk pregnancy and birth.

So what is the intervention offered when a mother’s educational level indicates a risk of a poorer outcome?

@seven201 I was told my area didn't offer the antenatal home visit from a MW or HV any more (this was pre-Covid)! It was listed on the appts I should expect antenatally though which was why I queried it.

Im sorry about your mum. I disclosed that we had 3 dead parents between us and the one remaining was in poor health and lived hours away but that didn't produce any acknowledgment we had no support!

[quote MyDcAreMarvel]**@toomuchlaundry* you do realise when your DC is at school there will be things written about them on the school safeguarding database, some of which may seem trivial* I home educate , shocking how many people are willing to allow such state involvement with their own children even before they are born.[/quote]
I'd suspect most people don't have an over inflated sense of paranoia about what the 'state' will do with routine information about their child, it's not a low bar to have. If you required help from the state I'm sure you'd happily take it.

@hugr

I suppose you believe that higher educational levels = no risk factors

@Kennykenkencat

I don't think anything regarding educational level. I was simply stating that the purpose of the question is to identify known risk factors. A person can have multiple risk factors, or none at all. It's an exercise to identify those with multiple risk factors and thus a high risk pregnancy and birth.

So having no degree is a risk factor?

Or having a degree is a risk factor?

There is only 2 answers and one of them you are saying indicates a risk factor

*So having no degree is a risk factor?

Or having a degree is a risk factor?

There is only 2 answers and one of them you are saying indicates a risk factor*

Yeah, I said in my previous post, having lower educational attainment (whether that be GCSE, A Level, Degree etc) is a risk factor. For example, women of lower educational attainment are more likely to give birth to smaller babies, have premature babies, or have babies who need respiratory support after birth.

So what is the intervention offered when a mother’s educational level indicates a risk of a poorer outcome?

I don't know. I'm not a midwife.

I work in child protection and go to court to get orders to remove children from their parents at birth if necessary. Thank god for these questions without which so many children would come to harm. Astonishing naivety and entitlement on this thread

@hugr

*So having no degree is a risk factor?

Or having a degree is a risk factor?

There is only 2 answers and one of them you are saying indicates a risk factor*

Yeah, I said in my previous post, having lower educational attainment (whether that be GCSE, A Level, Degree etc) is a risk factor. For example, women of lower educational attainment are more likely to give birth to smaller babies, have premature babies, or have babies who need respiratory support after birth.

Yes there has been research into this and there is a correlation between level of educational attainment and certain risk factors. I guess by collating more data they can look into ways to try and mitigate this, it seems to be largely a global trend so personally I don't mind my data being used to bring about positive change.

I'd understand them asking about your job - i.e. physical or sedentary but the only reason they might need to know about your partner's job is if he'd been subjected to massive amounts of something that might affect him genetically (working at a nuclear power plant or with chemicals) or if it was something that took him away from home a lot (long distance truck driver with regular runs to the middle east or something)

It does. And sadly most of the UK population cannot grasp how exceptional the NHS is and are determined to moan and moan until it is destroyed.

40 years ago you would have had a point. Now - you need to look around at other state backed health care systems and see how far behind we are. Its not just about money either - its about how the system is organised and operates and the whole "national religion" vibe expecting patients to be grateful as if its some kind of charity.

As someone who has voted at every opportunity to pay taxes to support health care I think its time to look at other models of state backed health care which actually deliver timely care with a view to learning where we can improve. Currently the mindset in too many of the NHS fiefdoms is that they can't even learn from other trusts and practices, let alone foreign models.

How much time do you think there is for these appointments confusedconfusedconfused if someone did ask I'd have explained by the way, but it would have meant staying at the end of the day to catch up- if everyone did everyday would be putting shedloads of unpaid overtime in, so no thanks, sorry

If there isn't enough time in the precious appointment slot to ask for consent then frankly why are you wasting it asking a series of detailed questions which are not there for the benefit of the new mother?

The factors described do not require the level of detail specified in the questions which are for a data capture exercise. The factors relevant to the mother could be identified with much more personalised questions for the woman in the room which also gives you more chance of helping her.

@Papayamya it’s not paranoia it’s just unnecessary. Abusive parents will be abusive regardless putting unnecessary stress on regular families is in no way helpful.

I don’t get what’s so difficult to understand about this.

People are studied at population/demographic level all the time. Your education status has no direct bearing on any specific part of your pregnancy/parenting (apart from for those who do not speak English or are functionally illiterate). But it allows you to be grouped.

If the NHS wants to promote breastfeeding, reduce traumatic births, combat childhood obesity or whatever it will put a plan in place and then evaluate the impact. If the amount of women reporting traumatic births goes down that’s great, but what if it only seems to be benefiting women with degrees or Asian women? It would be negligent of the nhs to ignore those women who are not seeing benefit and to not question why.

It’s also important when it comes to randomising further studies. Middle class, university educated women are more likely to breastfeed. But they may also have better outcomes in other ways. When studying the impact of breastfeeding, if all the respondents are university educated, it doesn’t highlight the impact specifically of breastfeeding.

Black women are found to have worse infant and mother mortality rates. When looking at this you need a range of black women so you aren’t confusing a race issue with an education or geographic area issue.

TLDR; these questions aren’t for judging you and nobody has ever suggested they should be. The nhs is trying to care for the population and find areas of need. If you don’t like being part of that population then don’t engage with the nhs. God forbid your experiences of health care might lead to its improvement and benefit someone else.

13:14MyDcAreMarvel

@Papayamya it’s not paranoia it’s just unnecessary. Abusive parents will be abusive regardless putting unnecessary stress on regular families is in no way helpful.

'Regular families' . I can only think you are really, really stupid to make that comment...regular families abuse their children ...Work in child protection and you will quickly realise that horrible things happen to children in 'regular' families. Shocking ignorance .