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!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/09/babies-nhs-staff-blame-culture

I had brilliant midwives in birth centre but local GP character that did some of the appointments was abhorrent.

My overall experience was of uncaring, not very bright women, being given a lot of power and abusing it. There were a few wonderful exceptions but they were in the minority. I choose to have elective c section for second birth. First birth they made me feel unsafe, were rude to DH and messed up my stitching resulting in emergency surgery due to blood loss. I wonder if the bar is very low to passing exams / midwifery course.

You are not being unreasonable yo have a view on midwives based on your experience.

You're experience is definitely not in line with my experience though, but then I've only given birth twice so I don't feel like I can comment on the wider midwifery service.
My community midwife was amazing. The first labour was COVID times and when I had to go for a section my midwife was amazing. Second time I had alot against me to achieve my vbac and I think my midwife and the student supported me really well and probably are the reason I got my vbac in the end

Agree with this! I've been in for an accident and subsequent surgery and could not fault a single one of the staff for anything. The ones doing the surgery for my csection were delights - back on the ward, back to misery!

Dismissive midwives, uninterested drs.
Lying on my maternity notes (I never ate anything at all because they "forgot" I was there (?) My notes state I ate 3 meals a day!)
I've never felt so vulnerable or scared.

Can you imagine staff on a cardiac ward for example standing there taking the piss out of patients who were complaining of pain, telling they were imagining it, or making a fuss out about nothing? When I had an emergency admisson to ENT all the staff were so sympathetic about the level of pain I was in and how unpleasant some of the treatment was, When I was shedding a few tears a nurse mopped them up and held my hand.

Agree with you

Just putting this here.

https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2025-10-23/one-day-old-babys-death-was-preventable-coroner-rules

Midwives just told the parents the baby’s breathing was normal without doing basic observations.
Honestly I don’t know what’s wrong with them. Do the observations then you can note in the LEGAL RECORD which is your patient notes that the baby was observed, resps, sats, heart rate, temp all xxxx and mother reassured. Or to be extra careful ask a paed to check. But at least then if there was something showing they might have picked it up and if all the obs were within normal range they have their backs covered legally (not that that is any comfort to the parents).

I’m also posting this.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdc8tXyk/

I feel so sad for this poor, desperate young mother and family. From what she describes I can’t help but think she has been utterly failed by the NHS.

1. I don’t know enough about pulmonary atresia so not sure how easy it is to pick up at 20 week anomaly scan but that would seem to have been the first opportunity when a major heart defect might have been identified.
2. Newborn checks. Back in time babies were checked over by paediatricians the day after birth or at some point before discharge home. The move towards discharging mothers within hours of the birth, even in the middle of the night in some cases meant it was not convenient to have a paediatrician check for all and there was a move to train midwives to do these checks which includes listening to heart sounds. I have no idea if there are any reliable studies/statistics comparing quality of midwife check to paediatrician check and obviously I don’t know what check baby Ollie had or when but that would seem to have been an occasion when something might reasonably have been picked up.
3. Midwife referred baby back to hospital at ten days. Were there really no signs of cyanosis/abnormal breathing/becoming breathless when feeding or other symptoms that might have been easily identified before ten days?
4. Then when she received diagnosis she was told that with or without surgery he could live a normal life, just wouldn’t be an Olympic athlete. WTF A quick google tells me that survival rates without surgery are 50% at one year and 8% at ten years. How was she given such uncaring and apparently totally inadequate advice?
5. I assume the mother has reached out to all the UK paediatric heart surgery units to be told there are no surgical options. But she has found one in USA. I really hope she is able to raise enough money and successful surgery is possible. Her treatment from the NHS is dreadful. Of course most of this has nothing to do with midwives but I question whether an alert midwife would have identified problems sooner.

The midwives who attended me in labour were fab - calm, supportive, patient, helpful.

The community midwife was awful. She was endlessly critical and repeatedly wrong. She said I has gest. diabetes (wrong), that ds was breach (wrong), that I would need a csection (wrong).

I spent the last week cleaning & cooking, and had just sat down, 9am on due date when she rang and said "we needed to get things moving". I said no thanks, that I was healthy, no issues, not overdue. She wouldn't stop bullying, arguing and berating me, couldn't give me a reason for the rush. In the end my ex took the phone off me, told her to go away and stop twitching, and hung up on her.

DS was safely delivered 40+5.

She came & weighed DS twice in the first few weeks, then I never saw her again. Thank goodness.

I have no idea if there are any reliable studies/statistics comparing quality of midwife check to paediatrician check and obviously I don’t know what check baby Ollie had or when but that would seem to have been an occasion when something might reasonably have been picked up.

I can answer this question, there is a very large study called the Emren Study which looked at precisely this. For parts of the newborn NIPE examination there is no difference between the quality of examination (rate of things missed, or unnecessary referrals) between paediatric doctors and NIPE trained midwives. For some areas midwives were actually better and it was thought this could be due to the fact that midwives were likely to carry on doing the examinations over their entire career so will get more and more experienced. The paediatric doctors who generally does the NIPE examination is a junior paed SHO who as they progress moves away from doing them.

Maternal satisfaction was also higher when midwives did the exam compared to paediatric doctors and it was felt this could be due to the higher amount of health promotion type discussions which the midwives engaged in compared to the paeds (so talking about things like feeding, sleep patterns, wet and dirty nappies).

I don’t know about this exact case but I know it’s a fact that just because a baby has a heart defect/murmur does not mean it’s necessarily audible at the initial examination. Sometimes they only become audible as the baby develops/heart problem gets worse over the next few days/weeks.

Knowing how shocking our local hospital is when things get tricky, because of my work, I told them I was having an elective c section and that I was doing it because I had no confidence in them being able to provide a safe birth by any other means.

I’m quite sure there’s something on my medical notes saying I’m a PITA - but I had an amazing c section experience and was very well cared for afterwards. My community midwives before and after were also excellent.

Had my babies over 40 years ago. With baby 1, the MWs were generally awful, cruel in the way they treated me, impatient and rude, though the MW who actually delivered me was pleasant. She performed an episiotomy totally unnecessarily - because it was “hospital policy” - without anaesthetic and then shouted at me to be quiet when I screamed. But worst of all was the doctor who stitched me up afterwards: she was cold, rude and indifferent and it took her 2 hours!!! The anaesthetic she used was inadequate, I felt everything, and she refused to give me more. I cried so much. I suffered PTSD (and still do) from the whole experience.

With baby 2 at a different hospital, complete opposite. MW encouraged me to use different positions (this was 40 years ago so quite revolutionary) and I gave birth standing up, while she sat on the floor and caught the baby. When I told her I did not want an episiotomy unless the baby’s life was in danger, she was very happy to agree to that and said she would do everything she could to ensure I didn’t tear. And I didn’t tear - 9lb baby born after 5 minute second stage. Absolutely joyful

For my first birth my midwife was amazing.
My second she was very sweet, but seemed to have no confidence and was obsessed with keeping me covered and well dressed all the time, which I thought was odd and a bit irritating.

I've only ever had the sense that they didn't care from couple who came in to cover my main midwife's shift. They made no eye contact and just sat in the corner chatting and ignoring me.

That’s so funny. One of mine couldn’t do a very simple calculation. Like percentage of weight lost. And there were two of them trying to do it. They gave up and said they would do it later. I could still do it on 2 hrs sleep. I mean are they not doing this calculation several times a day ?

I had a planned section and my midwife in theatre was steady as a rock. Forever grateful for her support.

I had two appalling experiences and both times it was because of awful midwives. I was shouted at, not brought pain relief, not allowed to move my body the way I needed, not given the help I asked for, blamed for things that were not my fault. Those were the hospital midwives. The community ones who did the follow up were brilliant.

I had shocking experiences with midwives during my only birth process. Midwife on the lead-up was fantastic and lovely. After my C-section they were all useless on the ward - completely ignored the fact my daughter wouldn't drink and wouldn't wake up, refused to give me the colostrum I'd been told to bring with me and just kept saying 'we'll check back in an hour' then a different person would appear and we'd start from scratch! I eventually got a midwife who showed me how to actually breastfeed, gave me the colostrum and showed me how to administer it.

Had (repeat) awful midwives telling me to persevere with breastfeeding throughout the next week (basically starving my daughter), until the fantastic community midwife noticed I had sepsis, and wasn't producing enough milk. She got me readmitted to hospital and also got my daughter on formula boosters.

When I went to hospital to be re-admitted, the nurse I saw clearly thought I was exaggerating when I listed symptoms and told me 'all new mums feel rubbish' (heart rate of 140...). The midwives on that ward were fine, but again pushed me to 'only breastfeeding' (ignoring the fact that I literally couldn't exclusively breastfeed), ignored my cannula leaking and also completely ignored my concerns about the antibiotics I was on affecting my daughter - it destroyed her gut bacteria and she had severe stomach issues for the first year.

Health visitor was nice, but I saw her once?

It seems like the whole industry is going down the pan, honestly. It's awful and such an insult to the professionals who are good at their jobs, and the families who need their support.

In my first labour, the midwife said absolutely nothing to me, just wrote notes in the corner. She caused a tear and large (and painful) bleed while inserting my urinary catheter. She also checked my cervix and said I was 8cm dilated, only for the doctor to check immediately after, and to let me know I was actually 6cm (the same as I had been several hours ago) and that the labour had stalled. I was sent straight for a c section.

That night, I felt abandoned as I struggled to get baby to latch and taught myself to change a nappy, post c section. It was so hard to lift baby to and from her crib but the one thing the midwives were insistent on was that I couldn't co sleep (fine, their policy, but at least help me carry her as I recover from getting cut open).

A different midwife measured the baby completely wrong when she was born. Incorrect height and head circumference by many cms. A doctor came into me the next day and started to talk about extra tests, possible genetic disorders etc. based on the results . Thankfully I've got some medical training so knew enough to repeat the measurements with a measuring tape I found below the incubator (it happened to be there as they measure the distance from the jaundice lamp to baby) and tell her they were entirely normal. She checked herself, agreed, apologised, and left.

In my 2nd labour, I had a bleed at 40 weeks so was kept in for induction. 4 days later- due to a lack of beds- the 1st midwide on shift checked my cervix and said I was 2cm and labour was progressing. so she'd break my waters. That fucking hurt. Several hours later it was found I had a Bishop's score of 0 and wasn't dilated at all.

I had been so keen for a VBAC but ended up with another c section as the labour never begun and they couldn't try to induce with a balloon, as had been the original plan, and time basically "ran out" from when waters were broken.

During that time, one midwife was there for retraining, and she had a terrible, petulant attitude, argued with the other staff and reeked of cigarettes.

Another midwife (locum) was excellent. Obviously on the ball, compassionate, went above and beyond, advocated to the doctors for me.

I do think the NHS is under staffed and that the staff are grossly underpaid and over worked.
It's an impossible job and I don't envy anyone who does it.
My care wasn't what I would have hoped for. I'm just grateful my babies are here and okay.

Your experiences were negative but it really doesn’t mean that all midwives aren’t good at their job, lots are fantastic and go above and beyond. NHS shortages and recruitment bans means wards are often understaffed that isn’t their fault it’s the trust and the governments.

I agree that there must be some good midwives and I’m sure they have a lot to deal with, but what I personally experienced (and what comes over from this thread) seems to indicate that there’s a culture within midwifery of harshness and lack of empathy at a very vulnerable time in women’s lives.

My memory was of being afraid to approach them and of impatient and unsmiling attitudes. And it’s bad enough for women who’ve had a normal, trouble-free delivery but making those who’ve had a c-section get themselves to the loo unaided seems cruel, especially compared to how an abdominal surgery patient would be treated in other contexts.

I think the culture needs to change.

Why just NHS staff. I know plenty in other professions who are totally crap and would not pay them in washers. Maybe when we have to pay more towards NHS (and it will happen, trust me) they can afford to train the creme de la creme.

I gave birth in another EU country and it's very similar here. It was a Saturday night and my consultant was not working. The midwife who was with me was condescending and spent a lot of time forcing me onto my back and telling me I was pushing "wrong". I didn't want to be coached at all and felt I would've been better off on my own as luckily I had a straightforward birth.

She interfered so much that during the last moments I told her to "shush" and she threatened to leave! Unfortunately she didn't. I tore badly, snd the whole experience became traumatic at the end after an easy and positive early labour at home.

There were also about a dozen staff standing around chatting and watching as if it was a spectator sport, so they were definitely not overworked.

My experience was similar. I went into hospital at 7.30 pm. I was told I was not in labour and they gave me sleeping tablets. After struggling until 4.30 pm the next day I finally gave birth with a very painful episiotomy, I hemmhoraged so much went into shock. Wnen I came round and was being transferred to the ward, a doctor said you gave us a fright and a nurse said the drip I was on was on saved my life. With my second birth I was terrified the same would happen. And reason for the first fiasco became apparent: my waters were broken and I was on an oxitocin drip and told I was now in labour at 9am. Mid afternoon I was registering strong contractions but the cervix wasn’t opening. At 12 midnight I was still nowhere near dilated enough and a midwife literally pulled my cervix open. I finally gave birth 25 minutes later. So I would tend to agree that although you were not the only person on the ward, midwives are reluctant to give proper attention when things are not going well.

I had a midwife who was so so nasty and passive aggressive. Had a go at me for not peeing in the right pot and other things after I just gave birth, but that didn’t bother me as I had a baby! But she seemed jealous of my happiness and started to say my daughter looked weird - she said she will look beautiful to me as she’s my daughter but I don’t think she looks right, what is your risk of downe syndrome? She has a thick neck and short arms I’m going to get someone to look her her. So we had to wait overnight for a consultant to say why am I here basically? There are ten signs of Down syndrome and she didn’t have any of them which this mean midwife knew. the midwife left before the doctor came. Anyway was just mean.