to think parents might prefer a midwife full of cold to none at all?

[HarderToKidnap]

Can't give too much background detail, but imagine this. You have come home from hospital with your baby and you are expecting a midwife to visit you. Maybe you are anxious parent, maybe you are having problems feeding. You get a phone call cancelling your home visit and putting it off until the next day. Meanwhile a midwife who feels perfectly well has been sent home from work because she has a streaming cold - well past the sneezy/infectious stage (besides which her hand hygiene is impeccable and she ALWAYS catches it and bins it) because "it will cause parents to be anxious".

Newborns rarely if ever get colds in the same way adults do, so not much chance of passing it to a baby. I think parents would rather the midwife came with her cold than their visit be cancelled. AIBU?

YABU, newborns aren't born with colds but when they do get them it can be bad. DD2 was hospitalised at 4 weeks with bronchiolitis. OKay, germs are everywhere, but would I bring someone into my house to touch and physically handle my baby when they had a streaming cold?
No fucking way.

OP, youre absolutely unreasonable. I would have shot anyone coming to my postcode with cold, never mind HV or similar. If parents had serious concerns, call the hospital or your GP and somebody qualified would be sent over, pronto.

Taken from Associatedcontent.com;

So if your baby is only a few weeks or day's old their body has not had a chance to really boost their immune system, regardless of how much breast milk they have had. If a newborn were to catch a cold it can be a lot more serious than you may think. An infant with a cold can have feeding problems, dehydration, poor sleep, difficulty with their breathing, and ear infections. Not only will a cold take it's toll on the baby, but it will take a toll on you as well.

Hardertokidnap - are you seriously a midwife that thinks babies can't catch colds?
Just because you've never seen one with a cold? I've never seen the Taj Mahal but I know it exists.

My ds3 caught a cold at 3 weeks old and ended up oxygen dependent in hospital for 10 days, so I think colds should be taken seriously where babies are concerned.

Do not let anyone with a cold or flu near your new born baby. Absolutely bonkers to even consider it.

most mums would accept missed appt,rather than reckless snot fuelled midwife rocking up

are you always so gun-ho?

If you have been working as a midwife and are not aware that babies can be infected with viruses and get bacterial infections from the moment they are born, then you are a postergirl for my conviction that only consultants will ever come near my babies. They know better, the years of training to become a doctor surely covered such 'minor' nugget of information...

Ah, OK, reasonably unanimous then. The manager who sent my colleague home admitted there wasn't a medical reason per se, simply because it doesn't look good. She was obviusly "coldy", i.e. speaking a bit bunged up, red nose, blowing her nose but not spluttering or nose running or anything. Now, if any of the women had actually understood in any way when I phoned them to cancel their visits, that would have been it - but the expectation that I find a midwife to visit them, they didn't care if this other midwife was ill etc etc, was almost unanimous. Hence my wondering whether it wouldn't be better if she just went out.

Rollmop, the consultants are welcome to you.

I'd be furious and refuse to let a midwife in to exam me and my newborn with a cold. A cold can be way more serious and stressful in a newborn than an adult or older child.

Kerrrist on a bike, your ignorance is mindblowing......................

I really don't like these reverse AIBUs. Why not just come out and tell it from your POV in the first place?

Where I work (as a m/w in hospital setting) we are strongly encouraged to come to work even if we have a cold. Its not unusual for the majority of m/ws on the p/n ward at some point to have a streaming cold.

I do feel bad doing checks on babies when I'm like this but we get into trouble (formal disciplinary) at work if you have 3 instances of sickness in a rolling 12 month period. If I went off sick when I had a cold I'd run the risk of a formal disciplinary.

Plus if everyone did it then every shift in winter would be down at least one midwife and the staffing levels are bad enough without that. In an ideal world the staffing levels wouldn't be so bad that one person being off sick would make such a difference but they are.

Stripey...., please name the hospital, this is absolutely outrageous!

You think consultants take the day off when they have a cold? The cleaner? The woman serving your food in hospital? Your GP? The receptionist? Hell, do you think the nurses in the neonatal unit take the day off when they are over the worst bit of a cold but still a bit bunged up? Of course they don't. You are entitled to your opinion, of course you are, and this thread has given me some very valuable insight into how people think about their newborns. But to start bandying around the fact that I am somehow evil and wicked and hate babies for thinking (THINKING mind, not actually hoicking up a greenie into a newborn's face) that parents might prefer a visit to none, is a bit OTT. IMO.

YABU

My SIL visited me just before I had DS, bringing her son who had a really bad cold, which I promptly caught. DS did not but the cold made recovery from the ermergency CS more difficult, I was terrified that I would burst my stitches. It was definitely part of the reason that I did not carry on BF.

I would not want to see a midwife with a cold when I had a tiny baby.

No way am I naming. Sorry.

Yes, YABU, I also am agahst that you say the mums you phoned didn't understand and would rather a visit from a sick MW, especially when it's unanimous on here that they wouldn't be welcome.

Newborns do get colds and can be very serious as they can't feed/breathe easily. Plenty of examples of that from mums on this thread. Don't need to be a MW to figure that out.

Oh yes, and what stripey said. We all get colds reasonably frequently don't we, and they usually last for a few days from first sniffle to gone completely. Maternity services would literally collapse if we all stopped coming in when we have colds. So most people come in most of the days they have a cold - it's been like that everywhere I've worked.

You said she had a streaming cold. That to me isn't being over the worst bit.

Streaming means snot everywhere, to me anyway. Maybe you meant something else? What did you mean?

Charlie, maybe it is different reading iton here to being a home with a baby you have no idea about, who has been screaming randomly and ou having trouble latching it on, you are terrified and have been counting the minutes until your visit from the midwife, and then someone phones and tells you she isn't coming because she is sick and we are too short staffed to cover.

Well, she looked quite shit, had red nose, talking in bunged up manner, blowing nose quite frequently and occasional sniffing.