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!

I'm still upset at the treatment I received when I gave birth to my first 18 years ago. The midwives and nurses I encountered were uncaring, rude and unsupportive. I got up to go for a pee the morning after DD was born and naturally picked her up to take her with me. I remember a nurse shouting at me "what do you think you're doing, put her down you can't take her with you". The whole experience was horrendous from that perspective, and I had a fairly straightforward delivery.

I am from the U.K. but had my dc in another country. Is it the case that you don’t get meals brought to you on the maternity ward here? That seems crazy. I could hardly walk after having my first.

I 100% agree with you OP. From my experience, from my mum’s experience, the whole thing is disgusting. Once the baby is out of the body, no one cares and it’s disgusting.

I had that with DD1 (DD2 was post covid with some restrictions so they brought it to your bed). DH had stayed the night as we had a private room for medical reasons. But they wouldn't let him get breakfast for me, nor would they let him go with me to help. I had haemorrhaged and every time I stood up my vision went and my legs gave way. But still the response was "well if you want breakfast, you have to walk yourself to the breakfast room".

So I didn't have breakfast because that wasn't physically possible. I couldn't even make it the few metres to the en suite without DH half carrying me.

People often talk about the ‘over-medicalisation’ of births but my experience of NHS maternity care is that there’s a major drive towards ‘under-medicalising’ them because vaginal births are thought to be cheaper.

And all the major NHS maternity scandals - Shrewsbury/Telford and Morecambe - centred around withholding intervention (in particular withholding caesareans and forcing women to have natural births resulting in serious injury or death for them and their babies).

And let’s not forget, until very recently, hospitals had quotas for caesareans and were applauded for achieving low c-section rates - I think Shrewsbury/Telford was held up as a shining example at one point for its high rate of vaginal births, missing the tiny little wrinkle that mothers and babies kept dying or suffering grievous injury.

I complained about my maternity care because it was absolutely shocking. I was called names, given the bare minimum of pain relief and when the queried why I wasn't given the extra pain meds prescribed for me I was told that the prescriber doesn't understand how it works on the wards.

I so agree with you OP. My care was so bad. I was made to feel like I was a lazy parent who didn’t have her babies best interest at heart. When I was just exhausted from a 48 hour labour. Other countries treat postpartum mums like a patient who needs looked after.

Came on here to disagree but then read and do agree somewhat. Both births staff were great and absolutely no problems there and with first was home after a few hours which I was happy with, 2nd as we had a few problems we had an overnight stay and did just kind of feel left to it, especially as it was during covid and strict visiting times so partner wasnt there much. Sorry tmi but I was so swollen 2nd time and it was literally a waddle to the toilet and then I struggled to go, I did have to leave my baby on the ward which left me uneasy and also myself and my baby got hardly any sleep on the ward and as soon as I did get to sleep at like 6.30am, the (quite grumpy) midwife woke us up to do checks 🤣😴

I think it depends where you are and what is going on on the day. In my bit of Wales my maternity care with both babies was excellent. I got help with breastfeeding, lots of compassionate support in general, and offers to have the baby so I could sleep even though they were short staffed. I wouldn't ask a midwife/nurse to hold a baby whilst I went to the loo though, either leave them briefly in their little tank thing if asleep or if awake/needing feeding take them with you!

I do agree though that a) many women in the UK receive dreadful maternity care which actively harms them and babies even if it's just 'neglect' on the wards rather than e.g. messing up delivery and b) that we could and should do it much better. I'm not quite sure how other countries manage to do it so much better than we seem to be able to - it feels very wrong to be chucking women out hours after they have had a c-section or when they've not yet got the hang of breastfeeding. The negative impact on mothers and babies is enormous and causes public health issues that cost the NHS money, so IMO it's worth investing a bit more in perinatal care.

This.
I had my first in 2005 and it was abysmal then. I had minimal support trying to breast feed, the one time I was "helped" the midwife was clearly pissed off about it and grabbed and squeezed one breast so hard I had bruises in the shape of her fingers as I sat there trying not to cry. I've even got a photo of the hand shaped bruising. I've never been so desperate to get out of somewhere in my life.

I was in hospital for 2 days in labour with my first and then 3 days post natal. I experienced such wildly varying levels of care, mostly very good, caring midwives who took time to explain things to me and took good care of me and my baby despite how busy the wards were. There were 2 or 3 who I felt would be better suited to other careers, I don't know if they were burnt out or just horrible people but some examples include exasperated sighs that I wasn't having 'productive' enough contractions and then giving me diamorphine and leaving me on the antenatal ward for 6 hours without checking on me or seeming to let anyone else k ow I was there....another lovely midwife who found me at midnight couldn't quite believe it. Once I'd finally given birth after 3 days of no sleep I was shaken awake by a midwife 2 hours after going to sleep and asked why I wasn't feeding my baby, she then plonked him on me and proceed to shove my breast in his mouth without even asking if it was ok to do so, when my very exhausted baby wouldn't latch she just started squeezing my breasts to express all the time chastising me for not having done so. I felt quite violated and when I look back now I cannot believe I tolerated it but I was young naive and exhausted.

I gave birth during covid and the aftercare was a hideous experience. My husband had to leave an hour after the birth. He was allowed to help me shower (I couldn't stand) but then he had to leave. I remember crying because I couldn't use my legs at all and any help was basically non existent. I ended up wetting myself because my catheter had been removed before I was able to actually get myself to the toilet and there was no one to help.

Funnily I was actually really impressed with how I was treated during the actual birth but yes basically afterwards you're just chucked onto a ward and left to fend for yourself regardless as to whether you can actually get out of bed or not without falling down.

Mine both during the Blair Government- horrendous.

Agree. Lack of staff isn’t an excuse. My hospital doesn’t even let partners stay with you overnight, even if you had an EMCS a couple of hours earlier. Disgusting. They don’t have enough staff but then don’t let partners stay either. They can’t have it both ways.

Really depends on the hospital.

With my first it was nothing short of abuse. The nurses where down right nasty and cruel and no matter what I did I lost (went to the toilet I 'abandoned' him, didn't go then wasn't taking care of myself so 'unfit', tried to take him with me trying to 'kidnap' him... it was fucking batshit).

With my second it was fine, not the greatest experience with NICUs and being on wards but non of it was nurses fault. One nurse was lovely and held my baby all night so I could sleep because he would cry as soon as he was put down.

With my third it was incredible, we used the birth center and it was like a hotel (private room, private bathroom, double bed so partners can stay) with a 24/7 childcare. Nothing was too much trouble for them. Wish I had the experience every time.

First was at a different hospital to the latter two. The latter where same hospital different maternity departments (high risk ward which is busy being one of the top in the country and accept transfers from all over the UK and low risk birth center which was quiet and pretty empty).

It's so hit and miss too. DC1, the aftercare was absolutely disgraceful, DC2 aftercare at same hospital 2 years later the aftercare was amazing.

My DD is a student MW, and I'm open mouthed that it's a profession she's choosing to go into reading threads like this.

You don't need a qualified MW to watch your baby while you go to the bathroom or to bring your breakfast to you. It's a secure unit and your baby is tagged. MW's aren't waitresses or care assistants.

I gave birth in a London hospital in 2003. There was a baby boom at the time so it was quite busy but it wasn't a bad experience, apart from gas & air ran stopped working and I waited an hour for an epidural. Left the same day. I also had the option of a home birth but I messed that up by calling the midwife too early. Worked out for the best as DS was in distress and needed quick urgent intervention by consultant. The health visitor who came to my home was great and there was a group set up for new mum's and babies under the GO surgery, so I was able to make friends in the same boat as me, which was precious while on maternity leave.
I think a lot has changed since 2003.

Mum and baby mortality rates are way higher here than in Scandinavia etc, so yes, I agree.

It's mad isn't it? I suspect if it was another area of medicine there would be a patient advocacy group and protests etc but new mothers are so knackered and busy, it never gets organised enough.

When I had my first in 2016, DH stayed in with me (I know some people on here hate that) or I wouldn't have been able to cope after CS and having to BF, pump, top up with formula.

Lots of the shortfall is in tasks that are actually very simple like helping people walk, holding babies, bringing food etc. I'm sure you could get volunteers or the most basic-level nurses to help for not much cost.

The thing is, you can sue them for clinical errors but not for making you feel like shit, even if it leads to PND etc.

What boggles me is that I was working in clinical negligence 20 years ago, on behalf of the NHSLA (so defending the NHS or more commonly working out how much money should be paid out to families whose children were catastrophically injured during birth) and these issues were well known about then. Issues such as:
Heart rate monitoring being carried out but no one actually checking the monitors
Mothers passing meconium stained waters and then left to labour despite this being a clear sign (with others) of foetal distress
Mothers left to labour for hours with minimal progression despite the known risk of PPH after a long labour.

The list could go on.

We have known about the understaffing and problems for at least 20 years (and probably longer, this was just when I started work there). It’s utterly shocking that this has gone on for so long with no changes.

Tell me about it. I hadn’t slept for a few days, gave birth middle of the night - passed out whilst doing so I was so exhausted. When I got back to the ward eventually I fell asleep only for a nurse to wake me 1/2 hour later to tell me something completely not urgent. I was so out of it I genuinely thought I had died for a few mins, I didn’t know where I was.

I then staggered to the only toilet which was literally covered in blood.

Second night my baby was in ITU for jaundice treatment and they kindly put me in an empty ward so I could sleep. However, the next day they complained to me that I had let my husband go home to sleep and he hadn’t been with me - on a bloody chair - all night to check on me. He’d been up for days too.

I agree. I was shocked when I had mine. I had sections and was offered zero help. I was bf and struggling and my babies would not sleep at all and I was in a state. In fact I begged for help at one point and was refused. They also tried to throw me out after one night with my second, when I was not ready. It would have been fine with my first but I had much more pain second time around.

My DM had a section with me. Back then she was kept in for a week and babies were taken to nurseries so new mothers could sleep.

There is an MP Theo Clarke who is campaigning on this at the moment.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/conservative-jess-phillips-mps-stafford-penny-mordaunt-b2371522.html