To think a lot of midwives are.. just not very good?

[JackandSallySkellington]

Please hear me out.

I am SURE there are dedicated, talented, intuitive midwives out there. But AIBU to think beyond doing obs, most actually do very little in the course of labour/birth and a lot of the time seem very passive and like they just can’t be bothered?

I have had 2 babies at different hospitals. In the first delivery, the midwife ‘popped in to check on me’ now and then and simply called the doctor in to do an instrumental delivery when the pushing clock ran down. She didn’t do anything else - didn’t help me change positions, didn’t offer me a drink, didn’t give me adequate pain relief despite me asking (just kept saying ‘it’s coming…’), didn’t ask me how I was feeling in any way. Couldn’t have been less interested.

Second delivery far worse. I was admitted for induction and after a few hours found to be 4cm dilated. I laboured all night - a full 10 hours - in a cubicle on a ward and despite regular pleas that I was in labour, the midwives insisted I wasn’t. They didn’t exam me again, just offered paracetamol, and only took me to labour ward when I was vomiting and discovered to be in transition and 10cm dilated the next morning. I had really hoped for a water birth and I’m gutted my final labour was spent alone in the dark. The hospital apologised but what’s done is done.

I understand about overstretched NHS etc but my stories are not down to that - in both cases the midwives spent a lot of time milling about and chatting.

I feel like the only stories about midwives being great are when the birth was going well anyway so there wasn’t much for them to actually do.

AIBU to think a lot of midwives just aren’t really up to the job? Sure I’ll get my arse handed to me as I’m aware criticising medical staff is v controversial!

Unfortunately I think your experience is very common. I was supposed to be having a home birth, I went into labout on a Tuesday night, but my contractions calmed down in the moring so I asked the midwife to come and see me. They visited three times over the next two days at my request because i was having very strong contractions overnight and fluid discharge but they didnt even examine me. I was written off as overdramatic I think... Anyway on the third night i called my homebirth midwife again saying I was concerned and she said "Well I cna come to see you if you want Georgie, but were very busy on the ward....". I felt really bad like maybe I am just being needy, but the next morning I did take myself in against the triage midwifes advice. Finally they did a waters test and my waters had broken on that first night over 75 hours ago and there was meconium in it, so it was an emergency and within 3 mintes I has everyone there in my cubicle, the anetheiologisy, registrar etc getting ye reasy for an emergency c section. From then on I was looked and i actually went into full blown labour as soon as I got gas and air becuase the extreme pain had been blokcing my progression and I didnt even have a c section in the end. By that point though I hadnt slept for 4 night and they hadnt let me eat anything for 24 hours, not even a cup of tea and I had a nervous break from sleep deprevation and they had to call the psych ward about me. All of this drama was 100% avoidable as if they had listened to me on the first night, believed i was in labour and given me some pain relief I would have had her on that first night as I my body wanted to. I'm lucky to have given birth to a health child and I think there were some actual angels looking over me and my daughter on that day. Anyway, no you are not unreasonable, so many women have these expriences its shameful.

This has really shocked me. Midwives/Nurses feel so undervalued and posts like this make things worse!!!

I’m sure I had PTSD because of one of my midwives. She was a vicious cow. She’s probably retired now (it was over 20 years ago) and I hope whoever ends up looking after her treats her with the same disdain and roughness that she treated some of her patients with.

She was horrible to one of my friends as well, as I later found out when we were comparing birth stories.

On the off chance that she’s still at large in Colchester hospital and someone reading this has her “looking after” them - complain. I wish I had.

Why does women discussing their traumatic experiences make things worse?

But you can’t just dismiss the experiences described here. If you’re an HCP yourself and a conscientious one, I’m sorry - it must be upsetting to read - but so many women seem to have had an awful time when childbirth should have been a joyful experience (at least emotionally, if not physically!).

Do you have any suggestions as to what would improve things?

i generally felt like even gcse double science pass was in the balance for all midwives I saw.. Bang average. 3 kids. High risk pregnancies and nothing but admiration for my obstetrician.
parent of dc3 friend high up midwife and wtf. Total flake.
YANBU

Amanda, is that you?!

I really want to say yes, just because it would be funny, but nope I'm afraid not.

A whole string of midwives missed an obvious problem with my pregnancy and a catalogue of further failures after birth left DD with lifelong disabilities :( i was treated like an idiot. The one looking after me at the point of birth was simply horrible, my mum still talks about her!

I had an amazing midwife for my first labour, and a terrible experience in the pp ward. I had a terrible midwife at my second labour, and great care at the pp ward 🤷🏻‍♀️

My first hospital midwife was appalling, tried to carry out an un-needed episiotomy without consent (I had to thrash about to stop her while shouting I didn't consent) along with too many other failings to document. The hospital apologized.

The second homebirth midwife was the most wonderful person. The first midwife was nothing to do with being understaffed, both the midwifery centre and the ward were empty. She was just shit.

One if the problems here is shit management. Most midwives are great, but the odd dreadful one is not being disciplined.

I had a mixed bag. Ones that were good were a literal god send and the bad ones traumatised me. I find community midwife’s are pretty poor and their roles are diminishing. I had a midwife who retired a few years back, she was from the old stock. Absolutely brilliant. Wealth of knowledge and a powerhouse when it came to aiding me during the first few weeks in PP. She kept me until the very last she could and then discharged me. In contrast the ones on the ward allowed me to suffer on my own during a horrendous failed induction as well as ignoring all signs of an infection which could have been fatal. So it’s really a mixed bag but I’d say over all poor because otherwise the maternity sector wouldn’t be failing.

I’m a midwife and god damn- this post is absolutely soul destroying, in a job where I never have a lunch break, and work late every day. Truth is we are massively under staffed and working more and more with so many complexities we weren’t originally trained for.
Like any “job” you might not see what they are actually doing.
Yes there are “not good” midwives who are not dedicated but they are definitely in the minority. People don’t go in to this job for the money, working hours or lifestyle.
we see life, we see death, the NHS is killing us as a profession with the non stop pressure. Please don’t think all midwives are shit because the majority aren’t, we do just want to care for you and advocate for you as a new mum.

Sorry if this upset you, honestly the ones that were good were a god send. Your role is valuable. You deserve to be remunerated well for your role and better working conditions. It’s just the ones who aren’t have left irreparable trauma for some x

Is this not a feature of every single profession? Not everyone is exceptional at their job?
My children have been taught by some truly excellent teachers, and also by some absolutely dreadful teachers. I have encountered great doctors, and awful doctors. I trust one car mechanic locally, but not another.
Midwives are only human, and they are working under a massive amount of pressure, scrutiny and expectation.
YABU.

Also would like to point out- we don’t just do obs.
ive personally resuscitated two babies successfully at high risk home births I did not want to attend as I felt my registration was at risk.
I’ve held the hand and cried with women who have lost their babies, taken their footprints, cried for days after at home.
Ive gone out my way to give extra appointments to women who are anxious, I’ve missed my own children’s important life events to stay with a woman who is almost delivering so I can give her continuity, I’ve been covered head to toe in amniotic fluid, blood, poo and the rest. And I’ve taken a real time pay cut throughout the last ten years. And so much more. The emotional, physical and psychological toll this “job” takes is something else.
All the time the news, trust and public are hating us at the moment.
Noone sees the real issue- underfunding from government, lack of staff and shit management.
And why do Midwives do it- because midwife means to be with woman. And I would say the majority of us are massively dedicated. We wouldn’t survive if not.

I think it’s complete luck of the draw of who you get. My first birth was everything I didn’t want, but had the most amazing midwife! But the triage midwives were SO rude when I went in. But the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, she stayed with me as she knew I needed support.
My second was my dream birth, but he was born 6 minutes before shift change and so literally left in the birth pool whilst they did handover. I was cold!!!
Third, amazingly caring midwives but when I said I was getting close, they said they had to monitor me and I barely made the delivery room. All 3 have had positives and all 3 have had negatives!

If your son hadn't been there, your DIL and grandchild probably wouldn't be, from what you've said? That's awful. It's great that your son did so well advocating for them, but he shouldn't have had to-some women have no partner, or else their birth partner is scared to argue with "professionals".

So I’m not allowed to share my experience because it was a positive one? You bore off 🙄 pathetic.

I've read a lot of Ellen Pasternack's columns recently (biology researcher at Oxford who focuses quite a lot on women's rights).

She has a good point here : that until recently women bore most of the opportunity cost of kids. Especially the injuries of childbirth. It's only now that we're beginning the move towards a better world in that regard - at least I hope we are.

Definitely though the midwifery/maternity care problems in the UK do seem particularly bad.

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/parenting-as-a-public-good/

I actually just was talking about this the other day.

My first labour I was at the birth centre, but ended up blue lighted to the main hospital. The midwife there was coming to the end of her shift (baby arrived at 21:21, shift ended 21:30) and you could tell she wasn’t impressed. She lied in my notes and was just generally unpleasant to me. The other midwife she was working with was as bad. Shortly after delivery I started to feel ill - breathless and dizzy. She told me it was because I hadn’t finished my tea and toast. I disagreed so she agreed to check my Bp and found it was high, as was my heart rate and proceeded to try to convince me this meant I was fine. I was also bleeding what I felt to be an excessive amount. Anyway, she found out I am a nurse and I wouldn’t let it go so agreed to ask the doctor to review me before sending me to the ward. She then stood guard while I spoke to the doctor and told him I was lying with every concern I raised. He agreed with her and that was that.

on the maternity ward I began to pass huge blood clots. The midwives told me it was nothing to worry about and sent me home. The midwife who saw me at home told me not to worry about it when the clots continued and got bigger. She also noticed my fundal height wasn’t shrinking back as quickly as it should but decided not to act on it because I wasn’t in significant pain. On day 9 I took baby to meet some friends, stood up from my seat and felt a huge gush of blood. I ended up back on the maternity ward diagnosed with secondary pph secondary to infection due to retained products. The original midwife had sworn blind to the doctor that I had a complete third stage. All of the signs were there right from the day I gave birth but because of incompetent midwives ignoring the red flags I ended up admitted to hospital in case I needed emergency surgery. They tried to encourage me to have a blood transfusion but I declined because by that point I was sure they would mess it up.

Anyway, this wasn’t a case of one bad midwife, it also isn’t in my opinion a case of the system failing. It was a case of poor clinical judgement and perhaps a culture of all blindly believing each other, and assuming a woman who says she’s bleeding excessively after birth just didn’t know what to expect. Having had a second child now (and also having seen my blood results) I don’t doubt for a second that something was already wrong right after I gave birth.

I’m a midwife and it makes me so sad to read these experiences but I’m also not surprised.These types of midwives do exist unfortunately and there is definitely culture of not caring - i think would be improved by actually having matrons on wards etc instead of literally never seeing them. There are also amazing compassionate midwives but they often get burnt out because of not being able to do their jobs properly due to ridiculous workloads and end up leaving

My first delivery they were so negligent they almost killed me and my baby. The second delivery was similarly high risk and they simply ignored me, until the baby was virtually born at which point they finally agreed “oh yes, you’re in labour”. No care at all. And no, not shortstaffed or overstretched - my bed was near the nurses station and I could definitely tell you they spent a lot of time having cuppas and chatting. We need to change the culture of hospital care across the board in the NHS - too often lack of funds is blamed when actually it’s nothing to do with that.

How on earth can sharing truthful experiences “make things worse”? Midwives are undervalued because whilst I’m sure there are good ones, too many of us have never met them. If you refuse to hear the truth, and just want to live in an “NHS are all angels” psychobubble, nothing will improve. I find your defensive attitude baffling at best and offensive at worst, frankly.