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!

Friends twins were very premature. In SCIBU the midwives were lovely.

Thats your experience.
Through my pregnancies and births I was looked after by lovely midwives and I’ve not got a bad thing to say about any of them. First pregnancy normal but ended up complicated birth, subsequent pregnancies high risk and equally great staff.

I had a home birth and the 2 midwife's stood by and watched and n one point of view didn't do much. To be fair that was my birthplan in a way but I had to ask if I should get in the pool and ask for gass and air which I thought was odd. However I do appreciate that they really let me get on with it, they monitored me as needed but it was really unobtrusive, I know they would have stepped in if needed. Looking back I value that they were just thier in the background. I do wish they had told me that I would need to ask them for things rather than them stepping in to make suggestions. My fear was having midwifes who dismissed me and like the story's above ignore when in labour.

I found the maternity hospital to be totally archaic…
But, luckily, the right midwife was there for my birth.
EMCS, she was calm amid chaos. Saved my baby,

I don’t mean to deny your experience, OP, but I don’t see how this can be true. According to NICE guidelines, midwives have to monitor a woman in active labour (so more than 4cm dilated) every 15 minutes - either with a hand held Doppler or by checking the CTG trace. So it is highly unlikely they would just ignore you for hours. Could you request a copy of your labour notes and ask to meet a consultant midwife to go through them and discuss?

Mine was awful- told me I wasn’t in labour- made me feel stupid- sent me home in loads of pain (the place was empty - they had to switch the lights on!) ended up having baby on my own at home 2 hours later

I had 3 fantastic midwifes for 3 births. They didn't leave my side once I was in active labour.
My 4th midwife well she was in the room when I give birth but she didn't do fuck all ds dropped out onto the bed. "I didn't catch him" no shit sherlock you was busy on the computer with your back to me how could you catch him.

But they didn’t think I was in active labour - that’s the whole point!

I was assessed as being 4cm at around 8pm by quite a young, seemingly newly qualified midwife. After that they came back every few hours to do obs, but it just hadn’t occurred to them (there was another slightly older midwife) that I could have progressed further than that 4cm. Why, I have absolutely no idea - I kept telling them I was in pain and they would say ‘yes, we’ll see when you’re next due some painkillers’ but that was it. I showed them my phone app so they could see my contractions, and they just pointed at the longest one and said ‘ooh that’s a long one’.

At no point did either of them say ‘this is active labour, let’s get you to the delivery suite’.

I know it sounds bizarre but it’s true, the inexplicability of it is actually the worst thing as it has left me with a series of frustrating unanswered questions which in the apology letter were addressed as ‘there were missed opportunities to confirm you were in active labour’.

My midwives with both my children were brilliant. Lovely, caring and advocated for me against Drs.
I do think they are under extreme pressure due to being understaffed and I feel like Drs try and push to control labour, bed numbers etc and it causes alot of conflict between them.

I’ve had good ones and bad ones . Some midwives are wonderful and some clearly are tired feed up and shouldn’t be doing the job .
I also worked in clinical negligence a few years and unfortunately most injuries and issues during birth are indeed due to medical neglect and could be avoided sometimes due to midwives, other times due to doctors neglect .

Had a bunch of amazing midwives for all 3 of my births.

DC1 two midwives with me the whole time. One was a student and she brushed my hair when she realised it was getting all birds nest! The post natal team so kind.

DC2 and 3 similar. Post natal team makes me feel tearful how tenderly I was cared for. Someone to lean on after my c section who changed my bloody pads and put new pants on me. Helped me on and off the bed. Gave me all the pain meds, advice, cuddles the baby. Made me laugh etc. I cannot thank these women enough for making my most vulnerable time of my life more pleasant

Had my first son normally, so when the second was born five years later, the midwife seemed to think that nothing could possibly go wrong.
After 36 hours of labour, eventually a doctor came and ordered an immediate c-section. He then ordered the midwife into the corridor and yelled at her that they could have lost me and the baby, and had she never heard of a brow presentation?
I was fully dilated, but she hadn't checked for hours. My son was stuck fast as he weighed 10 pounds, and was facing the wrong way. Lucky that he was such a strong baby, as we could easily have lost him. I was completely exhausted, and recovering from the caesarian after such a gruelling labour was difficult.
I wanted a third child, but it took seven years to be able to face another birth. I was assured by my GP that the hospital was "so much better now", so I agreed to go there for a planned caesarean.
Unexpectedly had to be a general anaesthetic, due to their inability to get the spinal block in. This resulted in my daughter not breathing for six minutes, and being whisked off to special care.
When I was back on the ward, I kept trying to tell the nurses that I thought I was bleeding, but they said it was probably that my catheter was leaking (didn't check though). Only when they did my obs did they discover my b.p. was 40, and that I was haemorrhaging. Cue everyone running around like headless chickens to get blood and a pressure pump to push it into me as quickly as possible.
They did save my life, for which I was obviously grateful, but if someone had listened to me it would never had got that far.
My husband went three days later to arrange a vasectomy!
This was some years ago, and I really despair that maternity services have not improved, and in some areas seem even worse.

Mine failed to notice that I had a wound infection and a temperature over 40C :/. GP had to come to the house where I was shivering in 2 polo neck jumpers and a dressing gown.

65% of maternity units in Britain are rated not safe enough to give birth in by the CQC, and we spend more on a country on compensation for women who have traumatic births than we do on maternity care. Both those statistics should be cause for national outrage yet somehow they are not. Please check out this amazing campaign founded last year by women who had traumatic births: https://deliveringbetter.org/

That said I did have two amazing midwives for my first complicated birth. My second was born 13 minutes after getting to the hospital so there was barely time for midwives to get involved.

One fabulous midwife. One sadist with no personal skills or joy in her job whatsoever. I suspect midwives need a career progression option (out of midwifery) as 40 years is too long to stay committed

I had CS births but was with my daughter for her two labours. Cannot fault her care . Community midwife in Brighton came in on her day off to deliver granddaughter and 2nd grandchild birth had midwife present and monitoring throughout. All went tits up at the actual birth and cannot fault the crash team .

Mixed reviews here!

The midwife I had for ds1 (30 years ago!) was incredible- she stayed well over her hours to ensure that I had continuous care all the way through (still feel guilty about that.) She was calm, kind and really knew her stuff.

Ds2, 12 years later- I think the midwife may have been fairly new to the job, tbh. She was not at all calming, telling me off because I was 'making noise and disturbing the other ladies' in the unit. An alarm went off as I was labouring and all of the staff left the room. She came back first and was very disapproving that I was still standing up. When I got on the bed she didn't do an exam, and when the rest of the staff returned there was an exclamation of surprise as baby was crowning- I gave birth shortly after.

However, both boys were born safe and well, so in the long run it doesn't matter, and hopefully the second midwife got better with experience.

My ones were really great....

I don’t remember much tbh, I think most were good up until the birth, then the post natal ward was pretty dire. But the worst was with DD1. I was transferred by ambulance from the birthing centre to another hospital and the on-call midwife who was called in to travel with me just looked out of the ambulance window the whole way and completely ignored me!

I remember a young mother post natal who wouldn't get out of bed. Said she didn't feel well and was so tired. Eventually the nurse lost patience and pulled the covers back. There was so much blood. She was rushed off into theatre and thankfully did recover.

I got the 1 who almost killed me struck off, I reported her to the police aswell they actually wanted her prosecuted but the procurator fiscal (Scottish cps) said no still I like to think that being questioned by the police under caution gave her a few sleepless nights.
Im not normally that vindictive but I was left unable to have anymore dc due to her actions

@JackandSallySkellingtoni agree. However compassion fatigue is a real issue in the care profession and something I have experienced myself where you have to become hardened as the medical world is frankly brutal and unforgiving in terms of its care for staff. With both my labours, the majority of midwife’s were rude and frankly couldnt give a shit. I self discharged with my second as it was so bad. After listening to another hospital due to start another investigation into its terrible maternity services, sadly, I feel midwifery has lost its core values.

Midwives with my first were excellent, both through a very uneventful pregnancy and a very eventful labour. I will always say I had a hard delivery but a good one. The postnatal ones weren't great though.

2nd one was very different. I was induced due to waters breaking but no contractions and they kept changing the plan which heightened my anxiety after a difficult pregnancy. Then the epidural didn't work and they wouldn't believe me, I was in agony and exhausted and kept passing out when being asked to push, it was terrifying. Eventually had a forceps delivery, they wouldn't believe that I could feel everything, from when they cut me to get the forceps in, to when they stitched me up. I can still remember that feeling now, asking for a local anaesthetic and being refused. That was me done, DH was keen for a 3rd, I couldn't go through that again which he fully understood having been with me every step of the way.

Friends daughter qualified, loves being a midwife. Got a job at a hospital in the north west. She only lasted a few months. Said that it was a very dangerous hospital to have a baby in. She came home very upset. Luckily she was hired by her home health board and found her confidence again.

Same