Would you complain about a poor birth/breast-feeding support experience in hospital. Any if not, why not?

[MummyBerryJuice]

In order not to hijack another poster's thread I've started this one following on from what AngryGnome revealed about her birth and breastfeeding experience in hospital.

I personally have no complaints about my experience but stories like hers really PISS me off. I hate the way caring, responsible grown women are made to feel like neglectful, irresponsible little girls by hcps who are supposed to support them, , especially when it clew to breasfeeding support.

Please come and share your stories, whether you complained and what type of response you received.

I feel passionately about enabling women and perhaps something can grow out of this!

I really wish I had complained, then at least others might not experience the same issues.

I had a problem with feeding (inverted nipples) which could have been overcome had I had more support and understood how it all worked. Instead I had very lovely, but not very experienced girls trying to help me for a short time before they practically gave up and I felt so lost, I just wanted to get out of the hospital, I left 12 hours after she was born. I can't believe that they thought that me syringe feeding was going to be the way forward, when I clearly had not grasped bfing. Ended up back in hospital by lunchtime the following day as dd had barely eaten and I just didn't have a clue what to do.

First couple of days just ended up being hanging around hospital while they checked her blood sugar levels, simply because she had not eaten enough in the first 24 hours. Was traumatic and I feel really sad that I didn't have time to enjoy those first days.

Ended up continuing to struggle with feeding, with hv's visiting and sitting on the otherside of the lounge explaining how to breastfeed. No one ever actually got hands on and helped me....until my MIL arrived and god love her, she helped me so much.

By that time I was so damaged and bleeding that I just never managed to get the latch right. After 3 weeks of pain, sobbing (DD and I !) I ended up expressing exclusively for 3 months before I just couldn't cope with it anymore.

Am contemplating number 2 and I am pretty sure that I am going to have a bfing expert on speed dial who I can call to come and help me asap this time. I would give anything to be able to do it next time.

Crikey - sorry, that is a long old rant, didn't realise how good that was to get off my chest...ahem!! Must also mention Tiktok, who's helpful posts helped so much in those early days!

Hi Mummyberryjuice. I think this is a really worthwhile thread. If it will help, I'll copy my original post about my experiences when I started bf'ing from the other thread here:

"You are so right about getting the right support. I was in hospital for over 2 weeks after a complicated delivery, and a lot of the midwives were unhelpful to say the least. i had a lot of difficulties establishing breastfeeding as DS had horrific cuts on his neck and forehead after a cocked-up forceps attempt, so it was really hard to to hold him, so i was trying to feed him lying down. Cue the following "helpful" comments..

"Get the baby out of your bed, it is unhygenic to have a baby in bed with a woman who has just delivered"

"Do you want your baby to starve just so you can say you breast fed him"

"If your baby had lost this much weight at home (he lost 13% in first three days )i would call social services to investigate your neglect"

There was one midwife who was absolutely fantastic and I would definitely have given up if it hadn't been for her. Since coming home I have had amazing support from a community nursery nurse. Without these people, DS would have been on a bottle as soon as the colostrum ran out.

Holy Cow AngryGnome, I've not read the original post, but that is just hideous. As though you would starve your baby, what a thing to say to someone who has just given birth - and a traumatic one by the sounds of it.

I have to say, I don't know if it is because many of these wards are understaffed that this happens, but I'll be saving up to make sure I can pay for my own bf support, at home, in my bed, or visiting me in hospital.

I hope you're both settling at home now and enjoying your son.

Well I had about 90% positive experience, 10% crap. But the thing with trying to establish bf is that it only takes one word of discouragement to really have a serious detrimental effect. You are IMO at your most vulnerable after having a baby and if you have the feeling (like I did) that you are being a nuisance by asking for support with each feed and have one midwife in every five saying, 'would it be the end of the world if you gave her a bottle?' then it can make it very hard to keep going.

I feel grateful that my hospital saved DD's life (crash section under GA) but there are some aspects of the after care I received that I was unhappy about, in particular:

They told DH that DD had to have formula whilst I was still under anaesthetic. He said I wanted to bf. I feel I should have had an earlier opportunity for skin to skin. I also would question whether DD really did need to be offered formula or whether she could have waited til I was able to feed her.

A few of the midwives were less than 100% supportive of my wish to bf. I had tons of milk and DD was able to latch, she was just very very sleepy (also 3 weeks early) and wouldn't suck. IMO she wouldn't have sucked a bottle any better than she sucked a nipple, but it was still suggested that I should give up. I stuck it out and ultimately exclusively bf til she was weaned and am still bf alongside solids now.

One midwife told me off for using the buzzer to get attention during the night for feeding help. She said it was only for emergencies. I think this was because she couldn't be arsed to deal with me, as I asked all of the midwives that I saw the followin day and they all said that was rubbish and to buzz if I needed anything (my hospital has a new maternity unit and postnatal is all private rooms now, not wards, so if the midwives on duty are in a room with someone you obviously don't know where they are and can't see them or get their attention other than by using the buzzer).

The food was appalling quality and I was starving most of the time. But that's a minor thing I guess.

Immediately post-surgery, I was fitted with a diamorphine drip. When that was removed, (after 24 hours), I was not offered any more pain relief and was not told that you have to ask for it, so I sat in bed in pain for ages waiting for the pill trolley and it never came. You have to book it apparently.

I think thatthe thing that upsets me so terribly is that the immediate post-partum time is when new mums are at their most vulnerable. You are exhausted, hormonal and responsible for a new life and any mum who is told that her baby's life is at risk will do ANYTHING to secure that Baby's survival.

I also hate the way women (mws) often use this time to (oftn subconciously) wield power and authority over other women and patronise and undermine their faith in themselves.

My experience was: during labour, the midwives did not handover properly when their shifts changed and so my care plan that the Obs.Drs had decided upon was delayed, resulting in unnecessarily extending my labour before I went on to an emergency C-Section.

After the birth, no one had time to teach me how to breast feed until a few days after the birth and only after I had started to complain loudly. Yet they wouldn't discharge me until I had learned how to breast feed.

I continuously asked for help, and would be told, "someone will be with you in a minute", but they wouldn't come for hours, if at all.

I had to stagger around the ward (not being able to walk upright after the operation), begging for someone to help me learn how to breastfeed.

They also didn't have enough time to write up my drugs for discharge which again resulted in a longer stay than necessary. It seemed so inefficient to be kept in hospital, taking up a bed, because they didn't have time to give me the care required to discharge me.

A student nurse put my newborn baby in bed with me when I was asleep, a dangerous thing to do to a baby when the adult in the bed has recently taken a lot of medication and is suffering from exhaustion.

When I started to complain about my care, I was asked if I would like to be referred to the mental health team. But all I wanted was to be shown how to breastfeed, to have my drugs written up on time and not to have my baby put in bed with me when I was asleep.

Sorry, bit long, but to answer the q. would you complain and what happened; complaining verbally in hospital just resulted in them literally saying I must be mad; so even though I wanted to complain again in writing after I got home, I just didn't have the strength to tackle people like that.

Just want to end positively, for dc 2 went to the 'sister' hospital of original hospital - they are part of the same trust - and they were brilliant, the complete opposite and I had a v. positive birth and bf experience there.

felicity10 and emsyj sounds like you both had a tough time starting out as well. Good luck with number 2 felicity10.

I wonder if a lot of it is to do with understaffing - certainly in my case DS was born in the middle of all the snow so staffing levels were apparently badly affected. Like emsyj, I was made to feel quite guilty about pressing the bell for help (I was in a private room as well, due to the problems I had post-partum).

Having said that, in my experience there is no consistency of approach from ward staff - one midwife would say don't press bell unless emergency, one would say always press it. One would would be hugely supportive of breastfeeding, another would encourage me to give up and give formula. I was told I had to give DS formula in hospital, because my milk was delayed in coming in (apparently this is quite common after traumatic delivery). Obviously, I now know that by not feeding I was further affecting my supply....

I mentioned on another thread that I was made to feel silly and naive by the majority of the midwives, and that insisting on breastfeeding was one of those "silly things" that inexperienced mums say.

You are right that more of us should complain, but i think that few women do because the first few weeks of motherhood are so overwhelming that you don't have time tor inclination to launch into a complaint procedure.

One thing I noticed was that it was always the younger staff who were more supportive - I don't know if this was coincidence, or due to changes in midwifery training? Perhaps any midwives around could comment?

I think overall I was quite physically in a bad way after the birth and also very tired of course and just didn't have the health and strength to complain. Also there were many lovely midwives who were very supportive and I felt it would have been awful for them if I had complained because I didn't remember the names of the three midwives who were awful so I wouldn't have been able to single them out.

I did very seriously contemplate complaining about one really bloody horrible midwife who barged into my room, hands on hips, and said, 'I believe baby has no interest in breastfeeding so I'm here to give her a formula top-up'. It's probably a good thing that she was so full of argy-bargy as it really made me see red and I put on my best Paddington bear hard stare and sent her packing. If she had been a bit more gentle with her approach I might have been persuaded to give DD a bottle.

These stories are very sad, and none of them are at all unfamiliar to me - I am a breastfeeding counsellor and I have heard just about everything.

I also find that very few women ever complain - and while there are reasons for this, I am afraid I don't think any of them are good ones :(

Not knowing the names of the midwives is not a reason. Explain you don't know - but you do know what ward you were on and when and roughly what time of day the worst things happened, and you should say this. The point of complaining is not to get at individuals, but to demonstrate that good training is lacking.

Time has passed? Not a good reason. I am not suggesting people complain two or three years later (though if they did it would be excellent evidence that bad support creates lasting memories). But anything up to a couple of years - tell them.

Too busy? If people have time to write to an internet talkboard about their experiences, then they have time to copy and paste the same text and send it in an email to the maternity unit.

Please complain, those of you who had bad experiences. And people who had good experiences can write as well, of course.

Well I have to say I felt I had great support in hospital. My DS would not latch on and I would say I probably had about 10 different midwives & maternity assistants trying to help me. No-one suggested a bottle and I was told I wouldn't have to leave hospital if I hadn't established BFing and I didn't want to leave. When they knew DS was not latching on they got me to express and syringe feed straight away, while also trying to get him to latch on.

In the end a saintly maternity assistant produced some nipple shields for me and DS latched on properly for the first time - 48 hours after giving birth. I found breast feeding counsellors very anti nipple shields, and this did make me stressed, but the shields didn't affect my flow, I managed to get him off them after about 3 weeks, and I BFed for 10 months.

I was altogether very happy with the support I got - but I think I was one of the lucky ones, coupled with the fact I was so determined to BF.

I have not been impressed with the support I've received in hospital either time, but no I haven't complained. This is because firstly my memory of events is so hazy, particularly after my first delivery which was very traumatic, so I can't be sure if I am remembering accurately. Secondly because I am aware how understaffed the wards are and I feel uncomfortable making a fuss. But I totally get that unless we do make a fus nothing will ever change.

My stories are not dramatic, other than the hospital not noticing my DS had a tongue tie which was pretty crap. Otherwise it's just the same old story of conflicting advice and generally poor support.

With DS I would have one MW saying it shouldn't hurt, try again, then another saying it will hurt at first. Which are you supposed to believe? Then there was the "help" with latching on, which more often than not consisted of shoving baby on the breast and leaving me to it saying I can buzz if I need help again. But then you buzz and an auxiliary turns up, and goes to get someone who never comes. Then you feel like such a nuisance that you don't buzz and try to struggle on yourself. It's no wonder that I left hospital with cracked nipples on both occasions.

gaelic - no reason not to complain.

Your memory of what happened sounds clear enough to me.

And yes - complaining is part of making the change we all want to see in support.

I can't say I had anything like some of the terrible experiences of so many on here, but nor can I say I got support or help until I got to my HV, and in fact got some downright crap advice, eg. that I had to "make" ds feed for more than 10mins at a time. (He never did, he gained 1lb a week, any fool other than a cranky old MW and an exhausted hormone-ridden new mum could've seen his 10-min feeds were not an issue!)

But I didn't complain because I was too freaking tired and by the time ds was a year old we were getting ready to leave UK and my brain was full of moving. I wish I had now. Of the other 3 women in my room, 1 was an experienced bfer and the other 2 gave up before the first night was out. They're never going to improve if they keep going they way they did with me.

(The ward was rather more of an issue; if I had complained it would've been far more about that than the lack of bfing support, tbh.)

I think that the real reason we don't complain is because we are made to feel 'silly' like our individual experiences don't really matter, and that they are such minor little blips in the great good andvery very important (and don't you dare forget it little lady) business of bringing babies into this world.

But tiktok (is as usual ) right. None of the excuses we give are good ones. And we need to complain, if only to make whoever is arranging and managing responsible for breastfeeding support in the hospital (and community midwifery teams) aware if how things really are. We (community peer support group) work really closely with the Infant feeding coordinator in the trust and it is clear that the stories she hears from the mws are miles away from the ones we hear from mums. In her mind they are doing a really good job of supporting mums and babies (strange that we have such a dismal bfing rate in the area then ) but we know otherwise. We do urge the mums to make a formal complaints but they rarely do. (It's a small community too and I think they may be scared of retribution in further pregnancies)

The fact that the wards are desperately understaffed is often a factor in poor care, but complaining will help highlight the issues.

MummyBerryJuice - you are already in a peer support group, you say. How about collecting a report of mothers' real stories of what happened with their breastfeeding? People can be anonymous if they do not want to single themselves out.

If you do a report of say, 10 or 12 mothers, and also interview 3 or 4 supporters, you can gather evidence of where you see the real problems - is it just after birth? Or is it the 'hands on' shoving of baby and breast? Or is it to do with attitudes and the words actually spoken to mothers?

Include in it examples of where you see they get it right, as well.

If you do a good job of compiling this dossier, and you do it under the auspices of the infant feeding co-ordinator who should support you in this, then it will be hard to ignore it. Include in your report your speculation of why mothers do not make formal complaints (they're scared of being made to feel silly; they're scared of retribution).

Your report does not need to be sensationalist or accusatory - just the truth.

Thanks everyone for sharing your stories.

Understaffing is clearly a problem, because learning to breastfeed takes time and patience. Ideally you need to have a rapport with the woman supporting you - there is nothing worse than a stiff-upper-lip style midwife coming along to jam your breast in your baby's mouth!

From my own experience, and others on this thread, it seems that there are a few common issues that hold us back from complaining:

1. We may have received excellent care in other areas, and so don't feel it is appropriate to make a fuss about this one issue.

2)We can't remember individual midwives who gave bad advice, or we can but don't want to get individuals "into trouble", or we are afraid that there may be a risk of retribution and making things worse.

3. Physically and mentally we often don't feel ready to launch into a complaint in the early days and weeks after birth - by the time we feel able to do this, we think too much time has passed and chalk it up to experience.

So we need to work out ways in which to tackle these problems. I firmly believe that complaints should not turn into witch-hunts against individual staff members. This makes women less likely to complain, and can make staff members resentful and resistent to change - and so the status quo continues. I wonder if all women could be given the option to fill in a brief feedback form when they leave hospital, anonymously if they wish, detailing what has been good and bad about their care. This can then be used as a template to address the training needs of the staff (if there is any money available to train them....).

I think it also helps if you have someone to back you if you want to complain - a DP, family member, friend, doula whoever. I think a lot of birth partners are ready and prepared to support women in labour by communicating their wishes to staff - keep it up post partum in case a woman does have problems and needs support in making a complaint.

If anyone wants to complain, I guess PALS is the place to start. Even if you feel you no longer want to complain for yourself, making your concerns known to the hospital will hopefully lead to better care for other women.

God, that was a massive rant. Sorry! Thats what an arts degree does for you...why use one word when ten will do!

Thanks for the idea tiktok. It really might encourage mums to come forward if they can do so anonymously. I also feel strongly that the complaints process should be neither sensationalist nor become a witch-hunt. Neither of these are helpful to resolving the issue. It turns a serious issue into a hysterical complait that is easily ignored AND it also ignores the good work done by many individuals n

Gnome, gonna pick holes in this one, sorry :

"fill in a brief feedback form when they leave hospital, anonymously if they wish, detailing what has been good and bad about their care."

This is yet another disturbance to the mother and baby (giving out the form, reminding to fill in the form, filling it in, collecting it). More than that, it's often not until you have left the hospital experience way behind that you realise just how crap it was.

Good point tiktok - I suppose I was just trying to think of a way to make it more routine to complain, so that it wouldn't feel so daunting. I certainly didn't mean for it to be compulsory for all women! But completely appreciate that whilst I would have found this really helpful, other women might find it to be a further intrusion/layer of bureaucracy.

I suppose what is needed is a range of ways in which women can express their concerns/complaints - your idea of a dossier sounds pretty good

I would worry that a form would not encourage people to be frank, as well. Imagine, you're waiting to go home with your lovely new baby. You are not going to write anything too critical while you are still there, or much detail.

Also, you don't know that the shoving and pushing you have experienced, or the thoughtless comment, or the bottle of formula someone insisted you give, etc etc will have a longer lasting effect on your confidence or your experience.

It's only distance that gives us insight.

I agree there should be some way of feeding back experiences - HVs or community midwives or even peer supporters should get some training in helping mothers debrief their breastfeeding support, maybe a few weeks later, and then send them in.

You know if I have another I will discharge myself and get help from a local bfing cafe. Hospital and Healthworkers were below average.

I'm pretty astounded that I did manage to bf. My baby was taken and give formula without my consent while in hospital.

I could go on and on but I won't. Thankfully I had a supportive DH. We had no family with us. And the Health Visitors were the first visitor we had, something I really really regret.

I always envisaged someone meeting my baby at our home for the first time to be only a positive experience.

I had a Health Visitor, who was admittedly very young and so I assumed very inexperienced who I remember saying to us something along the lines of:
"You really have no family here? Your family are not even going to fly over, you are going to do this yourselves and shaking her head at us and asked us how we were going to cope".

Actually after hearing that my DH cooked up an amazing cooked breakfast with Salmon and told them we really wanted to have our brunch to get them out of the house.

That along with some other pretty awful thoughtless comments meant that after a while, we used to pretend we were never home when they came.

We coped fine, by ourselves as it happened and thanks to wonderful midwives at a local baby cafe thing.
But it really did piss me right off, this Health Visitor also took my baby for a cuddle and I never felt she was worthy of a cuddle from our little star!

forasong I'm astounded how often thes hcps seem to forget that you have invited the into your home and that they are strangers and professionals and that they should conduct themselves accordingly. They are neither your friend nor compulsory and there is no reason or need for them to comment on your life style or choices unless it impacts on your baby's health/well being directly.

Aaaarrrggh

I'm not in the UK but had some similar experiences with my first born here in Belgium. Care here is generally very good (no wards - either private room or 2 mums sharing) and lots of midwives.

I had lots of midwives who really did advise on breastfeeding - getting me into position squeezing my nipple into baby's mouth. One even said to ring the bell every time baby fed so she could watch and advise.

There was one nasty one though who insisted that the reason baby was crying all the time was because he wasn't drinking 20 mins from each breast at each feed! He would feed for 5 mins max then fall asleep. She bullied me into giving him formula - not even from a syringe but from a bottle FGS!! I was too inexperienced and tired to know better and was really upset about it.

Needless to say DS thrived on his 5min feeds (95th percentile) so if I have another baby I will be more confident and feel able to refuse formula. And the reason for his screams - the red raw ventouse sore on the top of his head

I didn't have a particularly horrendous birth 2 years ago with my DS, but my aftercare was what I considered to be poor.

I ended up with an EMCS due to failure to progress after induction. I had spent 18 hours in labour so was exhausted and was already a bit worried at the aftercare as I overheard an exchange between a woman, who had given birth 12 hours before but had been so ill she hadn't held her baby (her DH had left for the night) and was really struggling, being told by the midwife in charge that if she kept ringing the bell "we won't come" and "there are people a lot worse off than you and tomorrow you'll be in the post-natal ward and you won't get any help up there so you better get used to it". Not reassuring!

When I got to the post-natal ward after my CS and when I was a bit more mobile the mws and I were trying to establish breastfeeding, but that consisted of a mw shoving my breast into DS's mouth and walking off. I couldn't get him to latch and there was no practical advice - every time I tried I ended up with a bad latch and a lot of pain - but when trying to get someone to come it could take up to an hour as there were not enough mws.

About 36 hours after CS my fibromyalgia flared up as I hadn't slept for 3 days. I get confused and disorientated when I have a flare up as well as being in pain, and so was not really aware of what was going on. This was all written on my notes and highlighted on the front cover but the mw hadn't seen it - so spent her time telling me off ("Feed your son, look he's starving") until my DH arrived and pointed at my notes.

Finally, I asked for help changing a nappy as I had never changed one before and was in a lot of pain and the mw wouldn't help me out of bed - she just smirked and said "you must have seen someone change a nappy" and walked off. I was still trying to bf too, so after I'd changed the nappy I tried to get DS to latch as he was hungry and couldn't so rang the bell only for a mw to charge in and say "you can't keep ringing the bell - you have to figure out how to do this on your own". The next day I put my DS onto formula.

I never complained - I put it down to lack of mws and staff and, at the time, over-sensitivity on my part. When I found out I was pg I spent at least 3 months crying every day as I was so sure I would have the same experience - however, the hospital I am due to have my ELCS in next Friday seems to be the EXACT opposite of last time. They have listened to my worries and have been understanding of my other health problems and quite incredulous that I would be worried I wouldn't get help if I asked for it so I'm hopeful.

On what Tiktok has said I am going to write to the hospital that I had DS in - I still get angry if I think about how much I let the experience ruin my first months with my DS and I think it would help to get it all off my chest before next Friday.

Sorry it's so long!

Yep, I have just put in a complaint about the way we were treated on the Children's Unit of our local hospital after being admitted due to DS losing just over 10% of his birth weight on day 4. We had a lovely home birth but the second on call midwife was much more hands on and did the shoving DS at my boob thing whilst I was trying to deliver the placenta, he was crying and trying to latch on, I was on the sofa trying to sort myself out and should have spoken up then but didn't. She also took him away and got him dressed saying he was cold and even though I was really keen on skin to skin having just given birth I didn't protest. I feel sad about that now.

Anyway, Ds didn't lach well and I was hand expressing. When we went into hospital I was told I HAD to give him a bottle and would need to express 60ml every 3 hours or formula would be used. I kept asking for a cup and was told it wasn't hospital policy, then a nurse arrived with a tube and went to start to put it in. I said no I wanted to use a cup and she huffed off to get the doctor who came back and started lecturing me saying 'you might be worried about a bottle, well I'm worried about his brain' (because of dehydration. I subsequently asked every nurse and the consultant I saw if the very mild rise in his salt levels could give him brain damage and they told me of course not, he wasn't particularly poorly.

After the lecture from the doctor I agreed to the tube and it was put down. I was told it would be a teeny bit uncomfy for him going in and then he wouldn't notice it. Not true. He screamed and screamed as she put it in, it was horrendous. After a night of tube feeding I insisted on taking it out as it was clearly bothering him. We then went onto these bottles that were throwing the milk down him, he was spluttering, necking 60mls in 3 mins flat etc. I had a nurse standing over me telling me I had 5 minutes to get out 10 more mls expressing or formula, was told to pull myself together (I was very upset and crying as day 4 and baby blues etc). I was told off for cuddling him in the bed with me as I could fall asleep. When I said he wouldn't settle in the cot thing as at home he was cosleeping with me was asked 'oh you're happy taking such a risk are you' etc. The room was freezing cold, I asked if there was a way to turn up the heating and one of the nurses just laughed. When DS pulled his tube out I rang the panic button (having been told the ward was crawling with germs and on no account to take him out of the room we were in) and was met with huffs and a FFS attitude. I was also told I wasn't allowed to breastfeed him, he HAD to have all food via bottle.

When we were finally discharged well over 24 hours after consultant said he was fine because of delays in blood test, he was on bottles of EBM plus formula. Took me two weeks and a lactation consultant's help to get him off the bottles onto the boob where after a week of very sore feeds it was apparent there was something wrong - turns out he had a tongue tie which was snipped privately.

Now he is 7 weeks, pain is finally receeding and he is fully breastfed. The thing that pisses me off the most is two doctors glanced in his mouth and said no tongue tie even though I said his sister had one and that his latch had felt funny to me. They just dismissed my concerns, didn't even feel in his mouth. TBH I don't think they even know what a posterior tongue tie is.

Sorry this is so long, it's actually really upsetting for me what happened and I am still angry at the way it made our postnatal period so distressing after such a beautiful birth.

The complaint I've put in is around not being able to cup feed and the tongue tie not being spotted. I gave the complaint verbally to the PALS office as apparently that is the policy and have been told someone will call me to discuss. I have to admit I'm not looking forward to it as have new baby and toddler and not much sleep so don't know how calmly I'll be able to discuss it all over the phone.