Midwives Attitude to Birthplans

[Hermya321]

I went to my first antenatel class yesterday at my local birthing centre and it came round to discussing labour, all was going well until someone mentioned birth plans.

The Midwife started then talking about how pointless birth plans were and that she'd rather chat to people rather than get paper shoved in her face (now I can understand the bit about paper not being shoved in her face).

She then continued on her rant about how useless they were and that she wouldn't go to a mechanics and tell them how to do their jobs, and that she didn't appreaciate being told how to do hers.

I did find it a bit bizare to be honest, maybe I'm being naive but I thought the majority of midwives encouraged you to write a birth plan.

Hi I remember a thread where a mumsnetter spoke about her birthplan and laughed at.

I used a birth plan - it went to plan - I checked with my MC and quite frankly if she had laughed about it then I would have complained.

They should be able to read a bit of paper.

some birth plans are unrealistic.the i will labour chewing eucalyptaus,chanting an incantation and no goddam interventionist staff.only my hypnotist

The only thing on my birth plan was - I wanted an epidural.

I made it quite clear when I arrived fully effaced and three cm.

MW told me I had to be four cm and then refused to examine me for 4hrs. I was in transition and she was still trying to negotiate with me to wait another half an hour I buckled under a contraction before she finally agreed to examine me and when she did I was 10cm and too late for one.

While I actually appreciate not having had one and doing it on my own I feel a bit taken advantage of by her.

actually in some quarters episiotomies are routine

Funkychunkymonkey, re the episiotomy, sometimes they are performed for convenience sake- last time, the hospital midwife wanted to give me an unecessary episiotomy. I said no because I knew enough to know it wasn't necessary, she just wanted to speed the delivery up. If there had been some kind of urgency or we needed to get DS out then of course I would have said to do whatever was necessary, but he was doing absolutely fine.

He was delivered not long after and I had a tiny tear.

Having to recover from an unecessary episiotomy after a 3 day labour would have been rubbish. I'm glad I did my research and wrote my birth plan because it made me well informed enough to say no to something I didn't want or need.

I spent ages on my birth plan. It was lovely. At 36 weeks I was told I was having a section, and I threw it away. Ah well.

You know you can look uo the percentages for intervention at your local hospital or health authority online. Mine has a higher than average amount of intervention. In cases like that I think it's a really good idea to have a birth plan!