to think that I was blamed for my baby's IUGR

[AvrilH]

My DD was induced early in January with IUGR (intra uterine growth restriction), she was very small for dates. I was treated like dirt in the hospital - refused help with breastfeeding, not allowed information as to my DD's prognosis or care plan, not shown any kindness or respect. Thinking back now, I wonder did the hospital staff blame me for her IUGR and feel I deserved everything I was going through.

For what it is worth, I never smoked or drank, and have never taken illegal drugs. But even if lifestyle factors had been relevant, I don't think it would justify the way we were treated.

That's awful

DS (my 3rd baby) was induced due to IUGR but that was down to the placenta being too small, and they told me so.

Were you not given any reason for the IUGR?

Hello, have you looked/posted on the Birth forum? I've seen posts on there from other mums who feel they were treated badly during or after birth - there are ways of seeking redress and maybe someone there could help you.
I'm sorry you had such a bad experience

I've made a complaint and got a partial apology.

We still don't know why she was IUGR. Before the induction I was assured that they would send the placenta for analysis, but when I asked afterwards they said "it looked okay" so they had just disposed of it.

I was allowed to meet my consultant, for the first time ever, after I complained. She said that it is very likely it will happen again in any subsequent pregnancy, and that I would need to take aspirin every day from the time I found out.

I'll have a look Pollyblue. Obviously, we are grateful to have DD at all.

I was told that too Avril (not that we are having any more).

Was she very tiny and early?

A friend had trouble like this, one of her babies hardly moved in the womb (she has 4 so knew it was unusual) she sepnt alot of time being hooked up to monitoring equipment and baby wasnt moving much at all (it wanst that she couldnt feel it)

She was constantly quizzed if she was on any drugs, i was there and kept reassuring her they were just checking as some people might not admit it or might be taking something herbal or whatever and not see it as a drug. In reality i was quite concerned there were so bullying. Anyway baby was born and was fine, if quite laid back but noow is 4 and very lively so who knows why

I had this too

when they delivered the placenta it was on the point of disintegration

the fuckers had let me go 2 weeks overdue ! Very nearly a catastrophe

FWIW, I was the healthiest-living pg woman ever. Seriously, there is no reason to blame you.

Some women just can't nurture a baby very well in the womb, it is a physiological/anatomical thing that cannot be helped. Your lifestyle has fuck-all to do with it.

She was 4lbs 4 and induced at 37 + 0

She was actually born in good shape. But I could not get her to latch on and was refused help for hours (despite several requests) until after we had been transferred to the postnatal ward. A midwife spent less than a minute getting her latched on badly, telling me to move her to the other side after 20 minutes, but I could not get her latched on again by myself, and nobody was willing to help. When DD cried later that night, I still could not stand up and they would not hand her to me, because by the time a staff member responded to my buzzing for help, my DD had stopped crying and I was told to "go to sleep, she'll still be there in the morning". A couple of hours after that she was showing signs of severe hypoglycaemia and was rushed to the SCBU, where she spent the next few days.

We never knew whether DD would be in special care for hours, days or weeks. We did not know how severe the brain damage from the hypoglycaemia might be, whether she had any possibility of living a normal life. We kept asking to speak to a paediatrician and were fobbed off every time. We were ordered to leave the SCBU when the doctors did their rounds. When we tried to insist on information, they just released DD to the postnatal ward with no warning.

AvrilH, that sounds like crap post natal care

but with respect, it may have been nothing to do with being judged for having an IUGR baby

you hear of poor levels of care all around the country, have you thought about that ?

It only just dawned on me that there might have been judgementalism involved. I had assumed it was just rubbish postnatal care.

I was also undermined by a neo natal nurse in the SCBU - who told me that I had to pull myself together, that other mothers of SCBU babies generally cope better, that she herself had coped better as a first time mother to twins.

I have no idea what prompted her tirade. Until she layed into me, I think I was coping. She kept going until I was sobbing uncontrollably and then sneered at my crying. I had just watched my DD have her nasogastric tube reinserted for the third time in one night.

awww, sounds horrible

no wonder you were upset

Sounds like a horrible experience. Ime things are pretty fluid in SCBU. I spent from 6.30am to 11.30pm every day visiting my ds and yet I could still be called at 3am to drive 40 mins to try and feed him. I even had to ask permission to leave the hospital and buy nappies and babystuff. I had a day's notice of ds going home - in the end he didn't as he had a bad relapse. I also had to deal with one nurse who thought she could persuade exp and me to get back together (exp visited once and said it would be better if ds died). I had one nurse who thought she knew best and didn't listen to my concerns at all - a few hours later ds ended up back in NICU very ill, which may not have happened if they'd listened to me. Another nurse was very rough trying to get ds to latch on and blamed me for failing - ds had no sucking reflex so not surprising it didn't work.

Having said all that those instances weren't the norm and the care ds received saved his life and I will always be grateful.

Mollie, that is dreadful. I am sharply aware of how much worse it was for other parents in the SCBU.

This line of thinking was actually prompted by my baby yoga teacher who used to be a neonatal nurse. She said how glad she was to have changed her career and to now be working with parents "who actually care about their babies".

I was , remembering the traumatised parents I'd gotten to know in the SCBU. We were told off when we held our babies for "wearing them out", and I think that affected bonding. Some babies had terminal conditions - how can you let yourself fall in love with a baby you know you will lose? (I know that parents do)

But, hospital staff must see a proportion of babies born to addicts, and maybe they are jaundiced by that. Not that it is any excuse to treat the mothers badly.

After I was tormented by that nurse, I was desperate to seem to be coping, in the hope that it might help me get my DD out of there. I wasted precious time putting on makeup, I fixed a smile on my face and tried to seem like I was taking things in my stride.

I know they could not have told me when DD would be discharged from special care - but they could have given some indication and told me about her care plan. The first night she was there, I kept thinking she would be released at any moment. By the time she was suddenly sent down to me, we were resigned to her maybe being there for weeks.

My DH was recently admitted to hospital in terrible pain.He was given a battery of tests and some IV antibiotics and pain killers and then about 24 hours later was suddenly woken up in the night asked to sign a very vague and wide reaching consent form and then taken down to surgery.When he came back to the ward he was told absolutely nothing about what they had done to him until I went and found out when I visited him the following afternoon.

Avril that's sad

DS1 was IUGR for different reasons (he had been 6lbs + at 37 weeks, by 38.5 weeks when induced he had dropped to 5lbs 5oz due to failing placenta) and the MW referred tomeas asmoker etc quite a few times,i don't smoke but apaprently once in an antenatal admission ahd gone out to chat with a smoker so they assumed I ahd lied in my admission notes.

It'sunfair and well done for complaining.

It doesn't always happen in a subsequent delviery- I've had another 3,they got bigger each time (6lb 11oz, 7lb 2oz, 8lb 4oz)and I nevertookaspirin but did have fortnightly scans to check everything was OK and monitor circulation topalcenta with ds2.

How long was she in SCBU? I recall it being real roller coaster ride. Ds spent about two-thirds of his time in NICU and one-third in SCBU but back and forth between the two, which was really hard to deal with.

I used to get there for 6.30am so I could listen to the handover from the night staff and also because I trusted ds's night nurse the most. There was many an occasion when he would stop breathing and I'd be left sobbing as they tried to revive him. It was the hardest time in my life but he is now a strapping 5.5 year old who, according to the consultant paediatrician we saw a couple of weeks ago, is 'developmentally normal'. That is the best Christmas present I could have.

It takes a long time to get over this type of experience and harder for you because the IGUR is unexplained and also because (at least ime) you don't know anyone else who has been through the same thing. I was surrounded by NCT friends all with healthy normal sized babies none of whom had to deal with the issues I did. Whilst they were wonderfully supportive it was still incredibly hard.

I hope your dd is doing well now. I would think long and hard about what you want if you are looking for an explanation or further apology and consider whether it is simply better to try and move on.

My dd1 (now 10) was IUGR and I remember the whole birth period as very stressful too. There was definitely little explanation of what was going on - she went straight to SCBU at birth and spent 10 days there. There were quite a few negative comments from various nurses and even my own mother... I remember being told to go away by one nurse because I was 'fussing' too much. I think lack of help with breastfeeding is very common unfortunately on maternity wards, IUGR or not.

My next dd was not IUGR but both the placentas for my dds were 'strange' according to the consultant. There was basically overall very little information.

Also at the last ultrasound before they did a C section for dd1, the hopeless sonographer told me 'your placenta's packing up'!! Very reassuring. The consultant said 'I see a red light ahead for this baby'! I was a nervous wreck by the time she finally arrived!

mademearcati - I hope your DH is making a full recovery

Mollie, that's great to hear

I guess that I don't expect any explanation - they have already said that disposing of the placenta was a mistake, and without it they can't tell what the cause of the IUGR was. Their treatment of me was just crappy and I don't expect them to explain that either.

They say that the protocols were followed for a baby that had been identified as at high risk of hypoglycaemia - meaning DD had additional feeding support, observation, and blood sugar monitoring. I don't see how they could very well have given us much less in the way of feeding support or observation. I would like them to acknowledge that they should have done more than merely tick apropriate boxes. I'd like to think that those involved might bother a bit more about future babies that are at high risk, if they understood how their lack of support and care may have impacted on my DD. Or at least that they might be comlained about!

But, I am sure that the hospital will not want to admit that they were negligent - in case of any future legal action (which I have no intention of taking).

Peachy & Parmageddon, that is really reassuring, that you did not have IUGR for subsequent pregnancies. One of the treatments for IUGR is bedrest, which I was not reccomended, I wonder why they don't think that stressing the mother unnecessarily might make things worse!

FWIW, my next baby didn't have IUGR either

Ds1 was IUGR. I was in for twice weekly placental dopplers and weekly growth scans from 34 weeks. Placenta was working fine and my consultant wanted us 'keep him in there' for as long as possible'.

Unfortunately she went away to a conference and I was told at one of my routine visits by a registrar that he wanted me in that day for a section. Fortunately we had got to know the sonographers very well and they had already told me that ds had put on a little weight and the placenta was functioning normally so I knew that the situation was no worse than when I saw my consultant 2 days before.

Dh and I told him we wanted to wait for my consultant to return the next day and if she agreed there was a need for a section we would go ahead. To which the registrar launched into a tirade against 'stupid, irresponsible mothers' and 'This baby WILL die and it will be YOUR FAULT. Do you want your baby to die, WELL DO YOU?" We were horrified, but a nurse/midwife behind him stood there and shook her head and mouthed 'ignore him', whilst doing a sign that indicated she thought he was fruit loop.

On the way out she said, he had no right to speak to us like that, that we were obviously intelligent, informed people and in her opinion were doing everything right for our baby. She also reassured me that all the test results indicated that ds was fine and not to worry. (I was so grateful to her as with ds being my first he had really scared me and I was starting to doubt myself.)

When my consultant saw me first thing the next morning she totally agreed with us and said ds was fine and she was happy for me to continue with the pregnancy unless the situation changed.

Ds was born at 40+4 at 6lb 6oz having gained over a pound and a half in the last week. He was fine and needed no special care, in fact we went home 4 hours after he was born.

I have since had two other babies ds2 was 7lb 12oz and dd was 7lb 8oz.

Oops forgot the point of all that.

At the time we didn't want to complain, we jut wanted to get on with getting our baby home safely etc. Although complaining about the registrar didn't actually occur to me until much later once ds was home safe and I had had time to reflect.

We never did complain, didn't have a clue how to go about it for one thing, but thinking about it now, I really wish we had. We were more slightly more mature parents, that had done a lot of research and were able to make informed decisions and stand up for ourselves. I still feel bad that I didn't do anything to stop that horrible, horrible man trying the same thing on younger or more sensitive women.

Avril its always worth pursuing so,mething if you have the strength just to stop it happening again.

DS1 wasn't admitted to SCBu,only check I can recall was waking at 2am to find MW stood next tome with him checking blood sugar (he was born at 5.30 so a long time after). He'd had a rough birth also, found out alter his heart was a concern but PAed was too busy to come and do a c section (and they had lost bloods whihc oplaced me at riosk of HELLP as I had eclampsia, though it was only a year later I got the full explanation, when I was expecting ds2 and from another Obstetricina, Obs at time told me I was suffering from over anxious mum syndrome).

DS1 has Sn now,ASDso probably nothing to do with it but he's a bit unusual in his presentation and I know that brain damage can mirror a lot of his oddities so I will always wonder. But never know.

We went home at 5 days, transferred to a MW unit at 3 bieng told a minimum of a week in there, MW said rubbish and sent me home a few days after.

moosemama - thank you for sharing your experience - I wish we'd had your gumption! (I know that's not really a word, but if I could turn back time I'd be a tiger rather than meekly trusting).

Peachy, I wonder what lies ahead for us, though the hypoglycaemia was so severe that we were told that there was very likely to be neurological impairment as a result, DD seems to be developing normally so far, though she does not babble, and at her last developmental check, I was reminded that SN sometimes only become apparant at a later stage. I am just so relieved that she is as healthy as she is!

AvrilH

Very sorry to hear your story, sounds like you were met with some really unpleasant people.

My son was in NICU and then in SCBU at the beginning of his life (collapsed lung and infection following prolonged period between waters breaking and birth and an EMCS) and it was a horrible experience, and I think I was rather lucky in having caring, committed staff, even if communication was sometimes lacking.

One thing I'll say is I think being ushered out when the doctors are doing their rounds is normal. I think it's to do with confidentiality in that they are discussing and examining the other babies and you don't have the right to know what's going on with them. (I know that was kind of the least of your problems though).