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!

I was quite a young Mum but well used to looking after tiny babies due to work and wider family etc.

I was holding newborn DS in the ward and this horrible Midwife screamed at me from the other side of the room "Don't hold your baby with one hand, you're going to drop him". Naturally everyone then stared at me probably expecting to see DS to be swinging by his ankles.

It must have been a weird angle or my dressing gown camouflaging my other arm as I was sitting on the hospital bed holding him perfectly well in the standard crook of arm cradling style supporting him with 2 arms and 2 hands.

I was absolutely devastated by her aggressive accusation and spent about the next half an hour hysterical with the other Mum's trying to console me.

Midwife just turned and left with an arrogant swagger.

At an ante-natal appointment a Midwife asked how I was getting on, I had never had morning sickness at all but it suddenly started around 7 months so I mentioned it and her reply was "being sick is part of pregnancy" - why even ask then if you're not interested?

Some of the best midwives I know have been those without children.

I love Call the Midwife but never ever, not even once have they shown a right bitch of a midwife being verbally and/or pyhsically abusive to a labourng woman. They always listen, support and encourage the woman. I think it would make a good plot line for a right hard faced cow to join the team and for the programme to explore the dynamics of how this sort of attitude impacts on women giving birth and colleagues who do not work in this way. I know it is fiction but I think it would be interesting

That was very wrong of them, it can be a bit of a production line mentality in some hospitals, they’re so busy and the midwife can be under alot of pressure to move you to the ward once you’ve delivered but they should of offered you a bed bath if they needed to move you that quickly. Also standard practice to facilitate at least an hour skin to skin and first feed with baby after the birth and then do the baby check, weight etc so there shouldn’t be any reason for them trying to get you up that soon. ( Although maybe no one available to give bed bath) The production line mentality js something I hated working as a hospital midwife, you’ve just cared for a couple through this amazing experience but from the second the placenta is delivered, the clock is ticking and from a management perspective you are entirely judged as to how quickly you can get that women to the ward (with completed tickbox list of shower, first feed etc) It’s not unusual to be allocated another labouring woman before you’ve even been able to transfer a lady, let alone have 5 minutes to get a drink in between. From the management perspective they need that midwife asap to care for more people and sometimes the room too. Although even on a quiet day it’s still expected everything is done and ward transfer done within a timely manner. Particularly if coming up to a shift change,

It doesn't make sense. If your baby needed all those scans X-rays etc ( there must have been something showed up wrong in pregnancy) then why in earth would you discharge yourself.?

Because they refused to listen.
I’d had quite a lot of trauma around births already, I have a serious heart condition that no one took seriously, and I was genuinely scared they weren’t listening. I kept asking the midwives to read my notes, but they put them out of reach for me, they took my notes out of the room “to chart stuff” and when it came back, huge chunks were missing, which I questioned and was told I was “neurotic” and “over tired”. They literally didn’t give a flying fuck.
I knew if I could get to my family GP, which at the time was a man who had treated me my entire life, he would listen and actually do something. Which is what eventually happened. It took a while for me to trust the NHS again, and when I took the baby in to see him at 3 weeks old, he literally took one look at his back and started the whole process, all the while saying it should have started at birth. My son has congenital spinal scoliosis and a heart issue both of which were picked up on my 20week and every subsequent scans. The midwives did not listen and did not care.

I had mixed experiences, mid wife during c section was amazing, mid wife after it was awful, to the point my partner went to the desk in the middle of the night and was quite firm that I needed help. Breastfeeding support was shockingly inadequate. 2 community mid wives during pregnancy one was beyond amazing, the other not great couldn’t be arsed. I think it’s hit and miss that was just the experience of one child and pregnancy

Same, early this year. I wrote them a thank you card! The whole team including all midwives and the obstetrician (instrumental delivery) were incredible and so dedicated. I also found the community midwives really helpful. But I know multiple people (different hospitals and cities) with very different experiences so YANBU

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I hate this narrative that exists that midwives or health visitors should have children to have that job... so a cancer doctor/ nurse should have cancer to do their job

Gosh, I thought they would be fab, but actually when it dawned on me the community midwife was dangerously rubbish, put me and my unborn child at massive risk, it was terrifying.

The midwives at the hospital before I had the baby didn't give a shit either, chatting and gossiping. They gave me the wrong meds, had to have Cs. Has planned lovely water birth.

The fab midwives in theatre and after saved me my and baby's life. Amazing women.

The ward after was staffed by midwives of all ages whom ranged from casual cruelty to contempt. One even removed my baby without speaking in the dead of night then left the ward. One said ' what nonsense' when I asked for someone to help me to the loo. She hadn't read my notes. I struggled alone, then collapsed bleeding out in the loo.

One told me my baby was losing weight so I couldn't leave. I asked to see her workings out as baby looked fine to me. Lucky I did, because she couldn't do % . I was gone within hours. She didn't apologise.

Two midwives out of them were amazing. One showed me how to bf, and the other found a giant baby bath from decades ago and showed me how to bath a baby. Brilliant. They were both agency midwives and said they would never work at the hospital permanently. Too stressful.

The people PATS I think said many women had complained about the maternity ward, but the mw just ganged up and blamed the mum for being hormal / rude so nothing was ever done.