English thing or an english generational thing?

[Winniethepig]

I'm Australian and my partner is
English, I have had two births, one on the NHS and one in Australia on our NHS equivalent.

Tonight our visiting in laws asked me to compare the births, and I had to say all in all the Australian birth was better and the one on the NHS was pretty horrific.

In short the NHS gave me a stretch and sweep without even asking, under the guise of an examination, which was excruciating. Followed by an extremely delayed epidural (I had to be augmented with hormones, and they said I could have the drip but had to wait for the epi, and every doctor and midwife gave me different reasons), only tk have it cut off to push, and then was stitched up with hardly any pain relief.

Compared to Australia, Epidural with 30 mins of asking, Epidural left in for the entire time through to stitches; and no examinations without gas and air or someone talking me through it.

Basically they told me; well can't we agree that your babies are here now, and just draw a line beneath it all? Then MIL said, well I had episiotomies without being asked (in the 80's) and I don't complain.

Honestly, why ask? If you just want to shut it down.

Is this an English thing? Am I supposed to just give a happy response, or is it just that generation?

Is it unreasonable to give an actual honest answer?

It's this. It's non-British people criticising the sacred NHS, where generations of people have been told to put up and shut up with sub standard care. I have been on the receiving end of this several times, and not by your ILs. FWIW OP my very good friend experienced early maternity care in the UK and ran back to Ireland to have her baby because she was appalled at the "care" she received - and that's not the first time I've heard that.

@Thepeopleversuswork

We have a weird attitude to the NHS. It’s been drummed into us that it is world leading and we need to love it, so we do. Even when the services are eroded to the point that they are unsafe or when people need to wait months for minor things. You denigrated the NHS, it cut right to their core, because they don’t want to admit that it’s broken.

I had all my babies on the NHS and the care I received was amazing!

I'm a Scottish NHS user though

I don't know tbh. My MIL is lovely but despite having numerous operations on different parts of her body over 80 years for free she moans about the nhs constantly! We are absolutely sick of it and just say 'take out private health insurance then' at any opportunity now 😡

It's a British (not English) Puritanical thing. As a woman you've sinned by having sex, even within marriage and even though it's something you have to do to procreate, and therefore you have to suffer. Hence all the judgment when women choose to have c-sections (dressed up as concern due to a "serious" operation or due to the cost to the NHS, but actually more to do with how dare they avoid the pain the rest of us have to put up with).

An example of this is the way France deals with traumatic birth injuries compared with the UK - lets just say it is much better. And there are probably far fewer of them too.

In some hospitals maternity care is very good. When I had my son the care during labour and birth was excellent. The post-natal care was pretty rubbish though (in hospital, it was good once I got home). As a pp has said, in other hospitals it's rubbish generally and in some hospitals negligent to the point of criminality.

I didn't give birth in the UK, and I am glad about that. The first baby was natural with a midwife and obstetrician present. The baby got into trouble and OB stepped in to deliver baby. Spent 3 nights in the ward in my own room and various people came in to show me how to look after the baby. 2nd birth was a C-section, and then I spent 5 nights in my own room. All this was paid via compulsory medical insurance. I think if I had been here with baby no.1, he may not have made it.

Some people do treat the NHS like a sacred cow and the only possible alternative to leaving poor people to die of disease in the street.
Because e.g. Germany is just a figment of everyone's imaginations, or something.

Fair point, @Oystersandwhelks I am from Continental Europe. We have different experiences of Scottish people.

I should have added that although I am a big fan of the NHS on the whole, I would trade it for the French or German health systems, which have better health outcomes (and have for a long time; the key measure on which the NHS used to excel was ‘efficiency’, which the British tended to replace with ‘best’) in a heartbeat.

I'm English and have had nothing but sub standard NHS treatment for all of my life, ranging from careless to life changing.

If I mention it any people shut me down. Usually those that work for the NHS are worse. Even though they spend all their time complaining how badly managed and under resourced it is if you do it you are shut down.

I'm at the point now where I consider having a baby not killed or permanently damaged by the NHS is a win. And it shouldn't be you have to be grateful for such piss poor standards. The clapping and non criticism of the shit show needs to stop or nothing will change.

It might be a British thing ( not just English) in that our NHS used to be excellent and people were justifiably proud of it.Specialist care can still be excellent, but ANY women's services are appalling. My last baby nearly died due to lack of staff, I suffered quite bad injuries and I was treated like utter shit by the midwives in post natal- boob grabbing without asking, refusing pain relief, allowing random men to wander round all night, shouting at women who couldn't breast feed. I wish I had sued. I was traumatised for years actually, mainly due to the baby nearly dying aspect, but all of it was awful.
I would sooner take my chances and give birth in my living room than ever set foot in a British maternity ward again.
So YANBU OP the NHS is shit in many many ways, and lots of Brits can't accept that.

They were pissed off that you didn't give the answer they wanted, and took it as an insult to the English healthcare system (which many seems a source of pride). It's as simple as that really.

Do you know whether they voted for Brexit? I feel that that's relevant here...

Private in this country is not extensive enough to deal with anything acute or complicated. Hence why those of us in areas where the maternity care is recognized as officially sub standard and dangerous have no choice. All fine and dandy if you have a straightforward birth, but to be quite frank you could do that at home. When shit hits the fan private don't have the equipment or resources to address issues quickly enough.

I'm foreign and I've learned never to say a bad world about the other country. You are free to criticise Australia (being an Aussie), but no one else should. It is never welcomed.

Both voted to leave

Well you gave the wrong answer. They wanted you to reinforce their belief that their country is better. Basic nationalism and not limited to the English

I don't think there's anything wrong with criticising the NHS when it's at fault and your birth experience wasn't good enough. They NHS is brilliant at its best but is under staffed and under funded.

I think it’s a MIL thing 😂

Yeah this, your in-laws are just ridiculous

From what I hear from friends who had babies in Australia it's a different world compared to NHS maternity care. Generally you get what you pay for so I'm not at all surprised that a private/semi-private model provides better service than the scraps that we get here. My nhs maternity experiences left a lot to be desired.

I’ve had good and bad experiences with the NHS, luckily both my births were exceptional and I was treated with the upmost care and consideration and none of my midwives ever just did a stretch and sweep, I was always asked first.
However when I had a miscarriage I was treated awfully by the matron, she was such a nasty lady and had no sympathy or compassion, I was kept away from my husband and shoved in a corner on a random ward with a IV that wasn’t even in my hand properly so I was in agony all night, plus I was freezing cold yet none of the nurses listened or helped me so couldn’t sleep, and the nurses constantly had me in and out of bed which I know was just part of their job but none of them where very nice to me, I was crying the whole time, it was an awful 24 hours, in the end I discharged myself as the doctor was nowhere to be seen and I wanted to go home and grieve and be with my family.

I had two births in completely different areas of England. The first one was great - I was supported, respected, listened to and had full confidence in the team’s expertise.
The second one was awful. Understaffed, crowded ward, inadequate pain relief and actually inadequate care, if I am honest. Thankfully a relatively straightforward birth because I would have feared for the outcome otherwise.
Felt sorry for the poor staff. It’s so hard to work so hard and know that you are not providing the care you would like to.
Felt more sorry for the mothers and the babies, though.

Nah. It's a foreigner slagging off Britain thing. With a hefty dose of only person to have ever given birth thing.

Unbelievable 🤦‍♀️