To be deflated by the total indifference to harm being normalised on maternity wards

[RedToothBrush]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgvl8l5q0xo

This is MN.

And there seems to be a total indifference and acceptance to maternity care being completely substandard in this country?

Why aren't we completely enraged by this on MN?

Why have we become so passive and why have we rolled over with a seeming attitude that we should almost just deal with it and its not worth complaining anymore?

65% of maternity services in england were judged to be failing. 65%

Why are we not putting pressure for this to be a much higher priority.

The cost to the public sector from compensation related to maternity services is astronomical. It makes up 60% of all negligence claims. This is billions of pounds just on compensation.

This doesn't include the billions spend on care as a result of those harms to women and children.

This is something like £8.2 billion in the year 2021/22. ONE YEAR.

We keep talking about cuts and budget blackholes, but this makes no sense. A lack of investiment in adequate services is costing us billions per year. Savings that COULD be made with better care.

Why isn't this a priority, and why isn't there more women on MN standing up and saying this absoleutely isn't ok? There's plenty of threads about immigration or wars or private schools etc all the time. But maternity services? Tumbleweed.

MNHQ has run a campaign on post-natal care in the past and the situation seems to be getting worse not better. Its dreadful.

So yeah.

Here's a thread to shout about how bad it is. Cos I'm really pissed off. No one seems to be listening.

The "you didn't die" attitude is ridiculous, because the fact is that most people of course won't die, but could have. And often end up with life-altering conditions. Let alone wider societal effects such as a decreased birth rate.

I'm not anti-intervention - quite the opposite. But I was persistently treated as a sheet of information by health staff, and they were unwilling to address the actual information I was telling them.

If they'd listened, they could have made the right interventions in a more safe fashion for me and my son.

It’s absolutely awful!

I had a traumatic birth and a poorly baby and we were booted out within 24 hours of a complex C-Section. I will never have another child, I can’t face the awful care and neglect and complete minimising of my experience as I was told by countless people including professionals ‘ahhh well at least baby is well now and thriving’, as if we should just be grateful to both leave hospital alive.

Whats sad is almost all expectant mothers I know now go into hospital to give birth fully expecting a terrible time. This is not ok. I honestly don’t know how it can be fixed though. The whole system is broken.

Exactly.
I didn't die. .but I must have cost the NHS and absolute fortune in medications and doctors appointments and (in the first few years post birth) psychiatric and Psychological support.

I remember no1 baby (she's now 27)
The midwife had a right go at me for not phoning to let them know I was on my way in
I had rang-9 times but nobody picked up
They left me,19 years old,scared to death on a bed to labour alone
I next saw them when I pressed the buzzer to say I wanted to push
She came marching in,started telling me that I was 'nowhere near ready to push' and with that dd was born
The cord was round her left hand and her nail tore me
She didn't tell me this,she just spread my legs and started sewing
On the ward,I tried my hardest to breastfeed but didn't have a clue what I was meant to be doing
Asked for help-nothing
They where more bothered about those crap bounty bags
And this woman (I don't know who she wa,she could have been a midwife,a cleaner or a random woman off the street for all I know) came stomping up to me as I was tearfully giving dd a bottle,and started screaming at me to 'breastfeed or your a shite mother' and 'fucking white women!'
She then slapped my arm and marched off
Same woman picked her up and walked off with her (I have no idea where she took her) and I last saw her when I was asleep a few hours later-she woke me up by Proding me in the hip-right on the spot where I'd had an injection (I'm blood group o- so had to have it)

I didn't know I was pregnant with no3 until 6 days before I gave birth
A long story short,I gave birth stood up on the landing with a friend and dd (then aged 3) as my accidental birthing partners
The midwife that came out made it clear she hated being hauled out to see me and made it clear she thought I was in inconvenience to her-she told my mother this and I overheard
She did the barest of the minimum and fucked off leaving me with the ambulance men
Got to hospital and was left for 16 hours on the labour ward with baby ds in an incubator as his temp had dropped (while the midwives where rude and treated me as in inconvenience)
I asked if I could buy a cup of tea from somewhere and was told 'no,get your family to bring one in'
No food or drink until I got home 17 hours after giving birth-I'd given birth early in the morning so I'd gone over 24 hours with nothing

It's a joke-when I tried to complain,they 'lost my notes' and couldn't help any further

I shudder to think what would've happened to my twins if I didn't demand an elective c section. Aftercare was awful. Treated like a nuisance.

A lot of the midwives (on birthing wards, not so much the antenatal appointments) treat you like they think you're a silly young girl who doesn't know anything, even in your 30s. I knew I was well into labour with DS and they said no way, not with a first baby. They left me contracting away on the antenatal ward, saying they'd check me 8 hours after my induction pessary. Well, 5 hours after said pessary I was holding DS, having basically had to give birth in a side cupboard when I lied to say movements had slowed and they realised I was fully dilated. 2 hours before birth they'd made me walk down to
the canteen for my sausage and mash!

I was absolutely a victim of "At least he's healthy." And the birthing centre I transferred to for breastfeeding help were so so good that in the end it erased a lot of the bad feeling at the time.

Some of us do think about it, are not apathetic and so decided not to have children. Considering the falling birth rate you would think they would want to improve maternity services.

I had an ok time giving birth at Telford in the peak of the problem period. Largely because (1) my husband is a medical professional and therefore very capable of advocating for me with no risk of squeamishness and (2) I was lucky.

1st birth I got sent home as not in labour and gave birth about 5 hours later with ventouse and baby had the cord wrapped around her foot. After I got home from the first visit there was some blood coming, so we went back in, hung around the waiting area and my waters went with meconium in them as the midwife finally got around to checking me, discovering I was 8-9cm dilated about 90 minutes after being "not in labour". If less pushy, I think that could have gone pretty wrong... but we got away with it and once accepted as being in labour and transferred to consultant led the experience was ok.

2nd child, induced due to growth scans (for low pappA) suggesting large child (just under 95th centile consistently) plus needing ventouse for 9th centile 1st plus some reduced movements. Labour followed a similar pattern to first with labour pain with little dilation followed by rapid dilation. Despite being on the induction ward, low staff levels (senior midwife also assigned to showing the review team around the ward) meant I wasn't assessed as in labour until 8cm, plus a fair amount of blood coming - difficult to get hold of staff and again having a competent advocate who speaks medical was pretty vital, plus of course being educated and sounding posh myself, which sadly does help...

Post labour the lack of pain relief, lack of opportunity for sleep and the expectation of lifting baby when you feel barely able to move is pretty standard, and the reason so many women want their partners around, hoping to have someone focussed on them rather than 6 -10 women and children to enable them to eat, go to the toilet (definitely a bit of a mission at that point in proceedings) and maybe get a bit of sleep.

Time and time again I hear this. I'd say it seems at least half of all women I speak to have been told they're not in labour/not ready to push bla bla. You'd think they would learn by now to actually listen to their patients! I had the same thing. Was labouring for hours and hours with no pain relief, being told I wasn't even in active labour! As my baby was b2b it didn't perhaps appear like they were proper contractions. But these were older experienced midwives FFS!

people are expecting a magical experience, you don't get that when someone has a tumour removed. I don't think you can fully separate the horror most people feel the first time they are in hospital from maternity services, which is the first hospital stay in a lot of cases, which is one of the issues.
Completely disagree. Women go in expecting pain, exhaustion and mess but also basic respect and human decency. I and many other women had been to hospital before having babies. It doesn't have to be a horror. It is good that women are shocked and angry at neglect and negligence, at being left in pain, filth and blood, without access to food or water and treated like a nuisance. Nobody should expect that or get used to that.

I would object to money being moved into maternity from anywhere else, the list of issues in the articles are happening everywhere and to allocate resources on something as subjective as patient satisfaction and demand would further penalise those who cannot argue for themselves, the people on dementia wards who don't even get help to eat before their meals are binned, for example.
my meals were binned before I could eat them when I was in hospital with hyperemesis because I was too weak to walk to the eating area. Eating at yo bed wasn't allowed. The nurses made it very clear what an inconvenience I was and had I tried ginger and eating little and often? You dismiss "patient satisfaction" on a thread were people are discussing PTSD, serious untreated injuries like severe tears and risk to life of baby and mother. Not to mention pretty objective things like bloody sheets.

I suspect a lot of the safety, privacy and dignity concerns come from the constant presence of other people's male partners on the wards. That was the only really horrible thing in maternity compared to elsewhere
Most men are there advocating for their wives and partners (who are often bedbound, traumatised and exhausted) and are kicked out in the evening.Again IME staff managed to make the maternity ward a pretty horrible environment on their own.

I think the run up to childbirth with the woo woo NCT classes affecting what women can realistically expect. They had pictures of candles in a delivery suite. Lol you're lucky if you get a midwife and not waiting for days. I waited 4 days to go to labour ward. I didn't care about candles. I would go for elective c section next time to eliminate risk associated with unscheduled care

Talking in mum and baby groups post a tally. Seems like c section/ induction is a dirty word. Anything other than birthing pool and breathing baby out is failure. Weird thinking

You just have to look at the numerous threads on here that say how grateful we should be for the nhs and we shouldn't slag it off to see why these things are allowed to slide. I read a thread yesterday about a woman suffering with other patients screaming, nurses talking loudly, poor treatment and the replies were all you should be grateful etc.......

No we shouldn't, we should demand more. After major abdominal surgery men would not be discharged without pain medication but thousands of woman daily are after a c section. Woman are left in unsafe/unclean situations on maternity wards every single day. It needs to stop.

You really do know. I felt this intense pelvic floor pressure as I went to fully dilated and genuinely mooed like a cow. But the default seems to be this weirdly belligerent "attack is the best form of defense" whereby anything you ask or suggest which contradicts the clipboard gets scoffed at.

I had similar. Wasn't my first baby and I told them how I labour. They of course knew better. They actually told me off for making noises on induction ward as I was upsetting other patients. I said my waters had broken they said I had wet myself. Student midwife comes in to ask who's waters had broken as there was maconion laced waters in the corridor. Midwife in charge was soooo angry with her for showing her up. Then left me to labour without a midwife on the induction ward with other women.they I ly believed me when his head was out. Had to transfer to labour ward with his head crowning and hip from one bed to another with his head literally hanging out. He was supposed to have extra checks with paediatrician as soon as he was born but didn't get them as they had refused to believe I was in labour. Luckily he was ok but had he not been?

Oh and I was derided even gas and air as "you are not in labour". It was like a torture experience.

Had a letter from the constant for my last baby explicitly saying give her gas and air when she asks as she labours fast and had traumatic experiences last two labours..... midwife's overruled the consultant said it's not policy and refused me gas and air. Refused to listen when I said something isn't right. Left me for hours screaming in pain without pain relief before accepting I needed an emergency section because baby was pushing my bladder out in front of him. And over two years later I've still not had proper investigation into what's going on with my bladder following that. Just last month I was given a self catheter and I lost so much fucking weight from the edema that had built up because I can't piss. I would have a functional bladder had they listened to me when I said hours earlier something is wrong. But they won't listen to us

I'm so sorry. This is so commonplace that surely they'd rather start listening than having to deal with these emergencies? Surely it would make an individual's life easier?

@LikeWeUsedToBe
I'm so sorry. That's horrendous and such a bloody unnecessary outcome. It's the lasting trauma of these experiences that gets overlooked. Hoping you can get the help you need soon (took me 5 years) x

Deleted comment as thread moved on and general discussion feels inappropriate.

I am sorry for everyone's experiences

This is why I had all my babies at home with independent midwives. No way was I going into the lottery that is NHS maternity care. Best money I ever spent.

Well it’s just care for women in a patriarchal society what do you expect op…

Because there is a lack of understanding about how dangerous giving birth is. It used to kill lots of women. Just because it's 'natural'
doesn't mean it's not without risk.
The stakes are very high and the compensation is huge as it's often to cover lifelong care for an infant born alive but with brain injury

What a rude and simplistic reply.

We cant judge the 'best' way to give birth without deciding on what measure(s) were using to define 'best'.

The PP quite likely has her own definition. Just as RCOG has theirs.

That you include 'cost' in your list speaks volumes.

As we know from this thread, the long term 'costs' aren't even spoken about. In fact, they're often silenced quite forcefully.

Agree. Best births for me were ds2 delivered by a paramedic as he came in twenty mins.. and ds3 with a planned home birth as assumed I wouldn’t make it to hospital. And I wouldn’t have. Lovely home birth midwives, care was amazing.
hospital birth with first child was horrific.

One of the main factors preventing complaints has to be that it’s the last thing you have time or inclination to be doing once you leave hospital with a newborn baby.

I had a reasonable experience with an induction but mainly because my waters broke during first examination so I was quickly sent to the labour ward. Otherwise there were women who had been on the ward for over a week waiting to have waters broken.

The aftercare from my csection was horrendous, my DH had to leave at 2am, 2 hours after the surgery, he wasn’t even allowed onto the ward to help unpack my bags to get what I needed for the night. I basically sat holding baby from 2am until 9am when visiting hours started with no way to get food for him, nappies or anything for myself. I wasn’t offered any pain relief as they forgot I needed it. A midwife waited at the end of my bed to discharge me at midnight, exactly 24 hours after the section, because they needed the bed.

I don’t know what the answer is but you only have to spend 10 minutes reading threads on Mumsnet to see how quick some women are to tear each other down. I imagine it’s a similar attitude in the NHS maternity services.

The stories ran the NHS (and all public services) into the ground.