@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.