I'll start by saying that the labour and delivery team were fantastic and I'm beyond grateful for the help they gave in getting my baby here safely.
However am I being unreasonable to have expected better postnatal care?
I was put onto the high risk part of the postnatal ward as I had a postpartum hemorrhage - I wasn't told that I hemorrhaged but one of the midwives left her handover sheet on my bedside table which is where I saw that I had lost over a litre of blood. I also was able to see information about the other women I probably shouldn't have known (fgm, concealed pregnancy and mental health diagnosis of some of the other women). Considering how much blood I lost I was surprised I only got prescribed 2 weeks of iron tablets with no followup bloods.
The lady next to me was Iranian and didn't speak much English, however she had a translator who she rang when asked, some of the staff didn't give her time to ring the translator though and instead spoke louder and spoke down to her.
I had trouble breast feeding, I asked to use the hospital breast pump when I was readmitted as forgot to bring mine in, they never brought it and when I asked for help with feeding technique they either fobbed me off with 'keep going you're doing well' or tried to help for a bit but seemed to get frustrated and leave. Turns out my baby was jaundice and too tired to feed so became dehydrated. I said I would formula feed when I got home, I didn't realise until after I was readmitted that the hospital has formula but they never offered me any to try with my baby despite me repeatedly telling them I didn't think he was feeding enough.
They discharged me without the injections I needed, instead I got a paper prescription and had to go to three pharmacies the day I got home to get the medication I needed.
They queried a heart murmur and wanted a second opinion, I asked if we could go home and come back the next day when it got to 10pm, they said no as it was babies heart. However in the 10 hours or so that had passed between it being queried they hadn't done any observations on him anyway. We ended up being discharged just after midnight.
I had a catheter in to start with and had to ask for it to be emptied when it became painful and I realised the bag was completely full. When they emptied it, another 800ml drained off immediately, no wonder my bladder was sore. They also didn't change the bed sheets each day despite them having blood on them. I waited about 2 hours after asking for pain relief before finding some paracetamol in my handbag and taking that, it wasn't until shift change that the night midwife asked if I needed pain relief. The next day when I asked for ibuprofen they said they'd get it but gave me dihydrocodeine instead.
When we got home the next afternoon the midwives turned up unannounced, they took a blood sample as they were concerned about jaundice and said they would ring that evening with the results. We were worried and waiting, no phonecall overnight so we thought it must mean the levels were ok. Went to the midwife appointment that morning and turns out the levels were high and no one had seen the results.
The main thing that upsets me is that twice they wouldn't let me hold my baby when they took blood samples. He cried so much and when they did let me hold him to take samples he was much less distressed. God even typing that now had made me cry. If it happened now I absolutely would not comply but I was only a few days postpartum, upset and didn't feel strong enough to speak up. I feel so bad about that now .
Sorry that turned into a long post. It just makes me sad that I didn't get better care.