To think if 91 midwives from one trust are under Fitness to Practice proceedings there's a problem with the trust

[JulietteHasAGun]

Rather than the individuals? So work load and staffing, procedures, training?

Nobody wants bad/rubbish staff to go unchecked but I struggle to believe that what must be a significant chunk of the staff are that bad? Scapegoat anyone?

It will suit Wes Streeting, etc to throw individuals under the bus rather than admit that the unit hasn't been staffed sufficiently.

There is currently an investigation ongoing (and a concurrent police criminal investigation) - how many investigations do maternity services need where the results talk about staffing levels and still the govt don't fund maternity services better.

The amount of obs and gynae compensation pay outs is over a third of the total obs and gynae budget and increasing massively every year.

Women need to be up in arms. The NMC are in cahoots with the govt and are doing bugger all about it. The RCM union are useless.

I can bet what;s going to happen now - midwives there will go off sick and/or leave. Who is going to staff the unit then? People will be put off training as midwives - why would you when you see this publicity. Interesting it's the female midwives being thrown under the bus....I don't see anything about any doctors being held to account!

I think this could be the end of Midwifery. These investigations are going to spiral and the blame be put in the wrong place. The govt are not going to admit they should have increased funding, the trusts aren't going to admit they should have employed more staff.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council suspends midwife in maternity probe - BBC News

85 open complaints against Nottingham nurses and midwives

I had a rubbish experience with my first birth (instrumental delivery) and insisted on ELCS with my second (at a different hospital).

I just basically didn’t trust midwives belittling my pain etc all over again so chose the most medical route possible and - honestly - the ELCS was great. I was treated with care and compassion in a way I wasn’t with my ‘normal’ delivery.

This is why I had all three of mine at home. The first was under community midwives and I had to deal with some misinformed and unsupportive nonsense. When the midwife appeared 6 hours into a 12 hour labour she started volleying questions at me even though I was so focused on massive contractions it was clear I was not able to chit chat. Owing to their refusal to allow me to birth in the pool I sustained a tear. DC 2 and 3 were born with independent midwives, the same ones. They knew me, my husband, my other DC and it was a world of difference. DC 3 was over two weeks late, no pressure to induce and was burn 42+4 at 9lbs with no tearing. It is absolutely the best money I have ever spent. Never having to negotiate with hospital staff or deal with the post natal wards.

Depends where you are as my trust is not near a uni/city and we really struggle to recruit.

It’s more regional - we struggle at my trust.

Out of interest, how does it work to typically have the same midwife at the birth that you’ve had throughout the pregnancy? Are they on call all the time for if any of their pregnant mothers go into labour? And if they are, what if they have other prenatal appointments already booked in when another patient goes into labour?

For DD1 I had the same midwife the whole way through, and she was at the birth, but only by coincidence that she happened to be on shift (and it was a hospital shift, not prenatal appointments).

Thats awful, I'm sorry 💐

Midwifery has had a shocking culture as long as I can remember.
I'm a nurse and they view us as inferior and are quite vocal about that. They don’t view themselves as nurses at all, which I think underlies their attitudes towards patients.
When I gave birth I was pretty horrified by the experience. They didn’t believe i was in labour when I turned up and wanted to send me home- I was 9cm dilated. It was just poor- no help with anything, begrudging doing anything not directly delivery. Postnatal ‘care’ was completely absent. Didn’t know that a certain a biotic was classed as a penicillin (am allergic). They had weird rules about when you could hold your baby. I witnessed them being cruel- a mum post c-section cried all night and was ignored and spoken down to. I heard them slagging her off ‘how’s she going to manage at home, she needs to get on with it’. I ended up helping her. A black mum dared to have a nap and I heard them calling her lazy and neglectful. Her partner visited and one of them told me they needed to watch him closely as ‘they are straight on top of them after delivery’.
I was hoping it had got better. I visited one of my patients after she gave birth in my own trust. She was so happy to see me she cried. I sat there while the midwife gave her a lecture on birth control, it was awful. They talked to her like she was a child.

When I started my 18 month midwifery training we truly were ‘with women’, it was the job I wanted it to be. Unfortunately that changed and I became a PIN number to catch babies, no time spent teaching breastfeeding etc, so that’s when I left. It was a hard decision, but I had to put myself first.

I had my twins under that trust over 20 years ago and the care I had after birth by midwives was appalling then. Truly dreadful.

Sadly after moving I had similar dire midwife care at home after my last child’s birth and it lead to her being admitted to SCBU, the consultant of which was livid re the care we had.

I went to college in 2004 with the intention of doing a Health access course to get the required qualifications to get into Midwifery. The course consisted of a variety of people all with the desire to work in healthcare, think Nurses, radiographers, physios etc. About 5/6 of us on the course wanted to go into Midwifery. Very quickly into the course I decided Midwifery was not for me, the only way I can describe the women on the course who wanted to pursue midwifery is as a “subculture”. They were sneering, judgemental and just generally obnoxious. They had complete disdain for the cohort who wanted to be nurses. I think at some point I had expressed that I was considering doing nursing first and then applying for midwifery. Their response was just weird, I was frozen out of their clique and generally made to feel like I was beneath them.
At the time it was ( and I am led to believe) still is a very competitive degree course to get on, they all got onto a course within first time of applying. It made me really think about the type of person that was being selected to train to be a Midwife. It felt really odd that they had very similar personalities and attitudes.

I don’t want to make sweeping generalisations of all midwives but I still think quite a lot about that experience in college and where those peers may have ended up etc.
My own experience of having children has varied, I did however only ever experience exceptional care from the maternity support workers. Without a doubt they looked after me and treated me with respect and dignity.

This was, to a detail, almost exactly my experience in Leeds General Infirmary in v early 2000s, plus smoother details. Absolutely awful and as a first time mother it really broke me.

I'm really sorry this happened to you op... I wonder if that midwife panicked or was squeamish?

I understand that feeling of total isolation, abandonment and fear where you're feeling injured, scared and vulnerable on the postnatal ward and you ask for help and the midwife is just stone cold in response.

It's partly why I'm so pro-husband-on-ward when I'm usually fairly anti-men. With my first I had her in lockdown and wasn't allowed DH on the PN ward and everything went wrong. With my second, lessons were (actually) learnt and it was so much better, but also dh was with me 24-7 so I didn't have that totally alone feeling. And he could fetch me a drink of water without me having to beg.

Midwives shouldn't make us feel isolated and alone, they should make us feel supported and listened to.

(Also, how hard is it just to walk around with a big jug and top up everyone's water glasses in one go?!)

I agree with you about the men. In an ideal world, no, they should go home. But the post natal ward is far from ideal.
I’ve told this story on here before but after I had DD2 there was a woman who had reacted badly to the c section drugs or something. She kept vomiting, and coming over dizzy and faint. They told her husband not to let her hold the baby unless he was right there, as they were worried she’d drop them. Then, 10 mins later, they tell him visiting hours are over and time for him to leave. The woman who you’ve just said cannot, for safety reasons, hold her baby now needs to manage overnight? The baby was in the cot, the woman couldn’t have moved even if she’d wanted to so couldn’t comfort, feed, or change the baby. She also couldn’t move enough to get a bowl, so vomited repeatedly down herself and the bed. And then had to wait half an hour for the bell to be answered. Midwife was perfectly nice when she did come, but it was ages of this poor woman lying in her own sick with a crying baby. And it wasn’t just once, this was all night - the vomiting eased off a bit but she was still woozy, and couldn’t sit/stand up to go to the baby. It was inhumane.
And from a selfish POV, it didn’t help with the sleep/exhaustion/general recovery of the other women in the same bay (4 beds in the same room) because no one got any sleep.

That poor poor woman. That is surely a textbook example of someone who could have her dh stay with her in a side room. She must be traumatised by that experience.

I also vomited a lot after my first c section (but it transpired it was because I had sepsis not a reaction). I remember one of the nice-but-hardened midwives holding a bucket for me and I just clutched her arm and asked her not to leave me and she said shortly that she wouldn't and I was pathetically grateful she stayed there having me hold onto her until I'd finished vomiting. I have never felt so vulnerable before ever. It just shouldn't be that way.

And then we hear that actually there are more midwives than vacancies, and they're also not particularly highly paid, why can't we just employ more?? That poor woman you described should have had someone by her side. When you think of the other crap they spend money on, like DEI officers or whatever

I agree, it was post Covid which changed things. Pre covid my DH was allowed to stay because they put me in a side room - this was because I’d had a PPH and couldn’t stand without fainting.
When I had DD2, it was post covid, and the side rooms were only for covid positive patients. So this woman was in the general shared room.

It makes me so sad and angry that covid is/was used as an excuse for poor medical care. How could anyone have thought that what that woman went through was acceptable. Lying there hearing your baby cry for you, but not being able to go to him, must be the worst torture a new mother could go through.

I really hope things are gradually getting better now though and they've left the covid madness behind. I had my second two years ago, at the same hospital, and the difference was like night and day. My older dc still talks about "visiting my new baby brother in the hotel mummy stayed at" because it was so calm and pleasant! And I think a lot of that was because the husbands were allowed to stay all night and act as personal HCAs to the mums, freeing up the midwives to do more of the important stuff.

I'm sure a lot of men are useless on the ward, but many of them (inc my dh) were quite helpful as manservants. In an ideal world there'd be more, and kinder, HCAs instead. I thought HCAs were very inexpensively paid, I'm baffled why they don't just employ more.

I know continuity of midwife care gets great satisfaction ratings, but I must say it's something I'd worry about given how many have attitudes to birth that I really don't hold with. I came across a couple during pregnancy and was delighted my contact with them was only transient. It might be one of those things that needs cultural change before we get the full benefit of it.

Reading this and another thread a while ago has made me think about my experience 30 years ago. It was unpleasant, but I thought it was just a one-off bit of bad luck. It seems there really is a negative culture in labour and post-natal wards towards mothers.

PPs have raised important points. Why, on these wards, when women are uniquely vulnerable and perhaps frightened, is there such a reluctance to give them basic help and show simple kindness? Why is it so important that they go and fetch their own food/drink? Why can no-one help them to the loo after delivery? Why are they treated so brusquely almost as a policy?

I get that the message is: you'll have to learn to cope, multi-task, put up with sleeplessness and carry on through the pain. Yes, obviously. There'll be plenty of that once they get home. But for the few hours/days they're post-partum in a hospital??? Surely to goodness someone could be supportive and kind for that crucial time.

It seems too widespread and too acute to be just a chance thing. It's as if midwives are actually trained to behave in this harsh way.

Midwives - is this right? Is there an aspect of your training which advises you to deny basic human kindnesses to new mothers? Genuine question - is it actually a policy?

Yeah I've never been fussed about the idea of having the same midwife throughout- I'd rather have a mix so that if I meet a horrid/dismissive one, I know I'm unlikely to see her again much. I suppose you could ask to switch if you didn't get on with your allocated one.

I actually don't need particularly "personalised" care, just compassionate. I mentioned the thing where a midwife glances at your name plate before saying your name - you know what, that's totally fine by me. I don't need them to remember me personally or like me or anything, I just need them to treat every mum compassionately and humanely by default regardless of whether they've met them before. Glance at the notes for anything relevant before seeing me. Stay with me if I'm vomiting. Listen if I'm worried about something.

I mentioned I'm a teacher (and I know my job is a lot easier than a midwife's). I teach over a hundred pupils a year and tbh most of them aren't that memorable and no way would I recognise the parents. At parents' evening I glance at my notes and share a personal anecdote that I've made a note of and other feedback then that appt is over and I don't think about the child until I'm back in the classroom and he's in front of me. Job done. If a pupil isn't in my class any more I literally forget everything about him (which can be embarrassing when he's back in my class in an older year.) "Personalised care" can actually be done quite formulaically on a large scale if one can be bothered, and doesn't require having the same midwife throughout, and doesn't require much extra workload or extra headspace even.

I don't think it's in the formal training to be brusque, but I think some of the training is on-the-job and students see the experienced midwives behave this way and it just becomes normalised.

By analogy I've worked at schools where some teachers refer to the kids as little shits or whatever, and you see trainees pick up on that vibe if their mentor is like that.

Yes I agree. I said upthread that for DD1, by coincidence I had the same midwife throughout and for the birth. For DD2 at the birth I had totally different midwives and it made no difference to me either way.

I think for some women it’s different, complex pregnancies, or previous losses or stillbirths I can really see the benefit if the woman wants that.

But I’m not sure I fully get the practicalities, unless midwives are on call all the time ready in case one of their patients goes in to labour. Will that help with retention, which I think is a problem in midwifery?

I agree it doesn't seem practical and I don't know why a lot of campaigning goes on trying to push for each mum having a named midwife when there are other easier wins we could aim for which would have a bigger impact.

It's counter productive because it's going to be hard to achieve, and then trusts don't need make any changes at all because they have legitimate reasons why they can't achieve this particular thing.

In my fairly extensive experience ALL hospital services that are specifically for women seem to be staffed by 75% utter psychopathic bitches. Im not going to go into things that happened to me in maternity, or things I saw and heard, or things I’ve witnessed in acute gynae because I don’t have time and honestly I’d rather not re- live any of it, but it’s NOT just due to lack of resources.

Maybe it’s the training, maybe it’s the type of person who is attracted to “ caring” for women at their most vulnerable, maybe it’s just that women’s services are the place where the worlds misogyny converges and where we see just how pervasive it really is.

There is a minority of fabulous doctors, nurses and midwives in these areas but God knows how they stand it.

Luckily, I only had one horrible midwife. If I have another, I’ll be requesting not to have her. She did my booking in appointment, I had had a migraine for the past 36 hours ish, was very nervous and had to talk about family mental health issues- of which there are a lot. Then I ended up in tears when they couldn’t do my blood test- it took them 6 goes and 3 different staff members and I’m not good with blood tests.

when I turned up at the birth centre, she was in charge. She told me I was making too much noise and that I ‘probably wasn’t as far along as I thought I was’ when I’d given no indication that I had any idea- I’d only gone in because they’d told me to from what the contraction time app had said. She demanded to know what I’d eaten and drank that day as my wee was quite yellow. She crashed me into the doorway in the wheelchair they put me in having told me that for me to use the birthing centre was ‘inappropriate’ and then when my waters burst out everywhere, demanded to know if I was pushing- I could feel my body was, but I wasn’t doing anything. They examined me and found me at 10cm- she scarpered.

despite the poor start, my other 2 midwives I had for the birth and the ones afterwards were lovely and 2.5 hours after arrival, my baby appeared. I have since been told that women have been in tears dealing with this midwife, why is that allowed? You’re at your most vulnerable and many having never done it before, the feelings and the pain like we’ve never felt before- midwife’s should be the most compassionate. It’s a dire state of affairs atm.

It’s disgusting that individuals are being scapegoated for a failure in the system. I’ve worked in the NHS and we regularly wrote letters to management stating the service was unsafe due to underfunding and staff shortages. Nothing changed.