To think British maternity care must be among the worst in the developed world?

[ForestGoblin]

Nurses refusing to watch newborns when a mum needs to poo??? Nurses have got a professional and legal obligation to support patients to receive adequate personal care (not being compelled to poo yourself has got to be rung one of meeting that obligation).

Friends who have given birth in Ireland, france, south Korea, Switzerland were all given support to sleep, recover, be recognised as an injured person in need of recovery time.

British nurses trick new mothers into thinking they can't leave their babies for a minute on a bloody hospital ward (even when they've got numb legs).

Rise up, damnit!

And how dare you talk about how I treat women.

I do the very best I can to make sure that every woman in my care has the very best. Of course I listen, I want every woman to have the best birth experience hence why I’m there and hence why I’m pointing out that there are actually people like me!

You are a complete bully tbh

Personally, I did not make a complaint of clinical negligence for various reasons

• it would put more pressure on an already overstretched system and possibly in the short term divert resources from acute care. In the medium to long term would there be much benefit or change? I don't know, maybe not

• I was in one instance bereaved and exhausted and in another instance had a new born baby and exhausted. I thought that putting in a formal complaint would have required emotional energy I didn't have

• I didn't want to hurt or damage the midwives or nurses particularly or get revenge or whatever

• in one of the more serious examples I gave, the consultant knew what had happened and I was happy to leave it to her to address the underlying incompetence as she thought fit

However, my experience remains valid, and I don't see why we can't discuss our experiences openly, on a discussion thread.

Spanglishmummy3 nobody doubt you and or anyone else who is doing their utmost best.
The point is FAR TOO MANY of us have had awful birth experiences.

I have friends from France, Germany and Norway - comparing notes - we are absolutely the worst in the developed world.
Half of my heritage is from Iran and I think the experiences of giving birth in Tehran are incredible, the after care and everything. Yes they are statefunded!

I really don’t know how many times I can acknowledge?! It’s why I’m there!!! To give the very best!
of course I am aware that bad experiences happen, it is very, very important that these are heard , but my point IS NOT silencing women!

It is about the fairness and the validity of blaming a maternity system.

with one so huge, on the NHS, it’s sad that we will hear such experiences, but let’s try and make our system better, not rant at a whole system . I’m not the only midwife I’m sure, reading this post and finding it really upsetting as you have to love what you do and care about the very thing your accusing us of causing

Thing is in most cases it’s not medical negligence, it’s institutional poor care. What happened between the 1970s when so many of us received truly excellent postnatal care and now? When I was in labour both I and the other woman in the next delivery room had our own midwife with us all the time. What’s changed? It would be really helpful if midwives would acknowledge that this really isn’t good enough instead of getting defensive.

If you’re trying to look after three labouring women simultaneously that’s rubbish for them and you @Spanglishmummy3. Why wouldn’t you want to see it improved for midwives and patients?

So how do you think we can make the system better, then? Because @Spanglishmummy3 , even if you are delivering fantastic care, which may well be the case, what about all the other instances where there are and have been problems?

AGAIN!! Never said don’t discuss it .

Im recently bereaved in the last 2 days so I’ve stupidly got myself upset about something I can’t change.

Just to say I personally really try my best for you all and your best experiences is my only priority. Leaving this now

I personally think the system is so broken that it’s impossible for any midwife, no matter how dedicated, to provide fantastic care.

If you want to accuse those of us who have PTSD from our experiences of being bullies, at least tag one of us

My experience as well - and I was complaining about serious provable stuff which they accepted and not attitudes.

This is the killer fact. This fact encapsulates everything that is wrong with the NHS. Maternity compensation payments are the tip of the iceberg tbh - compensation is a ticking timebomb for NHS finances and it is something that is rarely discussed. It is unfunded because the sums are a) huge and b) incalculable.
Without staff, patient safety is threatened and without money, you can’t get, train or keep staff. Compensation is the stake money for the patient safety gamble.

My condolences on your loss, Spanglishmummy3.

And please don’t leave thinking that we are all against midwives. Most of us are concerned about the system as a whole but recognise the hard work the vast majority of you do in very difficult conditions. I’d like to see things improve for you just as much as for the mothers and babies you obviously care so much about.

This is the crux of the issue. @Spanglishmummy3 needs to tell us how we can make it better, how and who to complain to. And no, please don't go down the "cuts" route. The poor care across the NHS is more than about money. There's institutional incompetence and institutional carelessness - more money won't solve that. So, come on, what's the answer??

Your first post said the thread as a whole was awful and said something like "I can imagine the type of women who make these complaints"

Which is massively dismissive, and sounds as if you think all the complaints are exaggerated by a certain "type" of woman (unreasonable, demanding, picky).

This.

I'm not a midwife but found some of the hate/generalizations on MN recently hard or frustrating to read. OP for example is a troll I've noticed on multiple threads who gets off on hating nurses and midwives. Her complaints seem to be that she's expected to be a mum, and she doesn't have her own personal servant. She 'doesn't care' if you don't have time to babysit her baby so she can poo because another mum is hemorrhaging or in agony.

I strongly believe every woman should freely speak about her experiences and her truths - and I can sadly believe most of them. Without that honesty nothing can change. Some of these messages have been heartbreaking and as a HCP make me so angry that women have been treated this way - even if we cannot give the time or level of excellence we want to, we should not be rude. I said upthread how sorry I am, and also recognize we live in a patriarchal, misogynistic society so fighting for the change women deserve is incredibly difficult.

I also recognize most staff/nurses/midwives are doing their best in a very broken system. It's just not possible to give great care to 12/24 mums and babies even despite running around without stopping, staying late to finish charting, not eating yourself for 14 hours. All while being paid nothing and reading hate daily on MN or from management.

That makes it so easy to get burnt out. Which then makes it easier for you to come across rudely or snap when you previously never would have dreamed of speaking to another like that. But what do you do? Go off sick to recuperate causing even greater staffing issues, and mums to have even worse care? Knowing when you come back the same will likely happen again? Quit the profession you used to love and worked so hard to be in? To do what? And again leaving the service even worse than it was before.

It's broken. The government is useless - and while I'm forever an anti-Tory our misogynistic governments go much deeper than the last decade. Without more money, more investment in maternity care, it will keep happening because those in charge don't care. And the answer is not mums having to pay for care or insurance - causing care disparities based on wealth instead. It's not fair on mums, babies or staff.

“Your experience is not the ONLY experience. We could make these posts about anything really!”

It’s my ONLY experience. I wish it had been different.

Sharing part of it on this thread was a very emotional
experience. But let me share a bit more. I did have a midwife with me while labouring on the maternity ward but she couldn’t have cared less, just watched the foetal monitor and, when she thought I was asleep, used the computer in the room to check Facebook and the home office immigration website. She was Welsh so no idea why the latter. I tried to get her to interact with me and “care” but she was happy for me to sit there quietly and she got shouted at by the senior who was called in when they realised my epidural had failed. Didn’t think to turn the pitocin down until I asked though. I thought they would be more hands on and working with me, positions, breathing, movement to help etc, but no, just watching the clock.

Im sure there are good midwives trying their best, but I am so shocked by the consistently callous behaviour at every stage of my journey. I felt, on reflection, that they were the kind of people who liked to have power over the vulnerable first timers and be able to choose (with the wealth of experience) how to treat them. Either bland indifference, do the minimum required, or little power games, gaslighting, bullying for their own enjoyment. For example I had arrived at an inconvenient time (5pm on a Sunday) and was told to go back to triage despite contracting 3 in 10. The midwife asked me if I could feel baby and I said just contractions so she said I had to go to triage because she didn’t have a heart rate monitor in the whole birth centre and my baby could already be dead if I didn’t get to triage to check. There was nothing she could do apparently. She told triage that she had examined me and seen meconium in my waters so that was why I was being referred back to them. She had not even touched me, and I’d been alone for an hour before flagging her down in the corriador and asking why I was alone and what was supposed to happen. Instead she told me my baby could be dead and there was nothing she could do. @Spanglishmummy3 can you imagine that being your first interaction with a midwife while in your first labour? But I’m the bully according to you?

@JaneTheVirgin

‘I'm not a midwife but found some of the hate/generalizations on MN recently hard or frustrating to read.’

The only hatred I see here is the contempt demonstrated by some midwives for their patients. More self-pity and victim blaming.

‘even if we cannot give the time or level of excellence we want to, we should not be rude.’

How dare you minimize what dozens of women have recounted here as mere rudeness and ‘snapping’.

‘a patriarchal, misogynistic society so fighting for the change women deserve is incredibly difficult.’

Yet more buck-passing and refusal to take responsibility. This is an overwhelming female-dominated field from top to bottom. And other countries with vastly less abusive care have just the same male-dominated hospital management.

Look at this parade of viciousness, lying, bullying, disrespect, assaults and total incompetence, and this is just a tiny sample:

The midwives chastised me wanting pain relief that would prevent breastfeeding They completely didn't believe I was in so much pain.

midwife called me cack handed because I was trembling when holding the baby.'

One of the nurses thought it was her business to sneer at me for using the hospital "like a bed and breakfast".

The nursing staff were bullies

Several midwives were bullying and rude. I have a health condition that typically affects males but females can have it too. They were kept telling me I was lying and females didn’t get this.

I ended up self discharging and got a mouthful of abuse which the midwife admitted too.

I managed to get at one point to a nursing station and begged for food, any food. I remember the nurse being rather amused and dismissive. She definitely wasn't rushing to save someone's life either.

The midwives kept saying it was too early, too early for an epidural and the anaesthetist was far too busy to come anyway. DH examined me in the end and clarified that indeed it was not too early. And then he whatsapped his mate, who was the on call obstetrics anaesthetist, who appeared immediately and said he'd been having a quiet cup of tea and no one had paged him in over an hour.

Felt extreme pressure to breast feed even though I was so unwell and dd was struggling to latch on. Told if I gave her a bottle it was like giving her McDonald's!!!

He was ok but they were callous and one shouted at me for crying about it

Gave me a lot of grief for not pushing hard enough.

when I fell asleep after section and 3 nights without sleep, they verbally abused me for not being awake to feed my baby

they poured the blood away without thinking to monitor

I've had to labour without gas and air until 10cm as they didnt believe i was in active labour because of contactions not being consistent times apart. Was such as 3min, 6 min, 2 min, 5 min gaps.

I was told I was being precious and it was just pressure, not a full whack of pitocin causing contractions every 2 minutes for almost 10 hours

With my second they tried to send me home 45 minutes before he was born because they were saying I wasn't in active labour despite me explaining this had happened with my first.

after that a midwife broke my hind waters with a large needle without my consent. With my screaming for her not to until she’d explained to me what and why.

You act like yours is the only job where conditions are poor and people are overworked and understaffed. This pity party stuff is more of the exact same abuse. Cut the cry-bullying and blaming other people and that convenient patriarchy miasma and take responsibility for cleaning up your profession.

My children are 7 and 5 and I had excellent care!

The other major problem with blaming understaffing, underfunding, the patriarchy, the Tories etc is that some units are clearly doing very well and providing good care, or at least are managing not to abuse women.

My experience was absolutely shocking. Lack of time has absolutely no bearing on the total lack of compassion. Within 24hrs of my cesarean I was told I was lazy and useless for not taking my plates back to the kitchen, and when I asked for some formula (we had used everything we packed as we were in longer than expected and my husband was on his way with more) the midwife said "why can't you go get it yourself". Absolutely disgusting i had to go to the loo for the first time without any help getting out of bed with moving/waking because they'd go and not come back, and I was left 36 hours without food and told I needed to just wait my turn. Kindness and compassion costs nothing

I wish I had made a complaint but with a newborn and the frenzy that goes with it I just didn't have the time to think about it.
The aftercare in the UK on maternity wards seem to be extremely dire and negligent. I have no doubt it is worse in cities like London.
My first baby was born at St Mary's Paddington in London in 2010. Second was born at Kingston which I've heard mostly good things about - but I was out like a shot and had no faith in hospital aftercare, luckily a straightforward birth though.

I'm...not a midwife. Never worked with mums in labour or post partum in my life. And I've been here years, so my posting history would prove that.

You refused to read or understand most of my post or the previous one which sympathized heavily with women and absolutely told them they should ALWAYS share their story and experience. I'm also very heavily involved on the feminism board under a different name so would never silence women.

If you want to believe the issue is only awful, terrible midwives then go ahead but that won't change anything. We need to address the root causes AND remove those who shouldn't be in their position. I understand you're hurting and likely had an awful experience yourself and for that, I am sorry. Genuinely. But mine is not the post, nor am I the woman, you should be directing your vitriol too.

You all just can't help demonstrating the problem over and over can you? You're too lazy to even read the thread and the first thing you get riled up about is people saying nurses instead of midwives. Oh the inhumanity! Someone call in the human rights lawyers!!

'I've not read the whole thread but I fully appreciate how each woman's experience is unique...our traumatic experience makes us feel as if we have had a bad midwife or overall treatment.' Of course, a bit of psychobabble euphemism for denying and minimizing the disgraceful conduct recounted on this thread and implying it's all in women's heads. The silly emotional little dears get notions sometimes don't they? Naturally you'll deny that's what you meant, because you don't have the courage to come right out and say it clearly. Have you absolutely no shame?

I don’t doubt you’re good at your job, and that you care. Surely though, it’s unacceptable that the experience of so many women post partum is so poor? The one doesn’t balance out the other.