"you can't have G&A yet cos you're only 5cm"

[glovesoflove]

That's bollocks isn't it? Any midwives be able to explain if it is true?

Starlight your posts really resonate with me.

I feel the same guilt and shame at not coping with the pain of OP presentation at 3cm dilated. I felt like my spine was going to split open. I vividly remember thinking to myself that suicide would be a sensible option if I could only hold it together enough to do it.

I think there is a problem in delivery suites of assessing patients according to their dilation and progress rather than their reported symptoms. It goes counter to what is taught in other areas of medicine regarding pain relief - acute and chronic.

Starlight - then you'd most likely have been wheeled over to the antenatal ward. If it wasn't busy (ha ha) on labour ward you might have stayed there.

With DC3 I was 5cm and then 5 minutes later she shot out like a rocket, so denying gas-and-air would have been daft.

I got sent home at 2cm. But I was also obviously still in manageable amounts of pain

Do they realise that G&A does not work on all people wrt pain relief?

Or just not give a fuck?

Once again I've fallen for this kind of midwife bashing thread and posted when I should have walked on by! NancyDrew you are surely a fool if you thought I was comparing the emotions felt by the midwife when a baby dies to those of the parent and a fool if you think that it doesn't affect midwives in a very serious way. But please, go on believing that midwives wake up in the morning thinking 'who can I piss off, belittle, leave in exruciating agony today?' if you want to as it won't be possible for me to make you see that midwives are women (for the most part) and mothers (for the most part) and try the best they can for the women they look after (for the most part).

I think that part of the problem is money/bed space. There's a limited number of beds on labour ward and limited number of midwives to look after women. If we had a labour ward twice the size then we'd have the space to look afetr women in early labour.

There's also the fact that women can be in the latent phase of labour at 2cm, contracting hard and in pain for days. If they had an epidural and were still 2cm 24 hours latere there are health implications such as teh risk of a DVT.

Starlight - yes the policy would apply for an OP labour as well. My DD was OP and that was missed as well. Sometimes they can be very hard to pick up. Its easier later on in labour when you can feel the fontanelles, can't always tell by palpation. Usually but not always. Though wanting to push at 2cm is a big sign.

I don't blame the midwives at all reikizen. I think there is a cultural issue , probably influenced by cost-saving and poor staffing levels, of trying to make patients fit into neat care plans and protocols.

I believe that experienced midwives with a greater degree of autonomy would be able to manage pain better for individual patients.

'expatinscotland, I have just read your post and I take offence I'm afraid. Please think about things before you post them, it is a truly terrible event in the life of a midwife when a baby dies during or soon after labour and it is not always preventable I'm sorry to say, sometimes
awful things happen, despite best efforts.'

Do you honestly think I'm such a moron I don't think before I post?! No wonder midwives get such a bad rep!

YOU take offense?! How about those posters whom this happened to? I know one of them and I know she still lurks here and once and again posts.

If you are 'offended' by so little as comments by strangers posting online I hate to think how nippy you must be in real life!

Be offended away! I couldn't really care any less.

'Birth should be led by the women labouring, not anyone else. HCP's are there to assist, advise and monitor. If a woman chooses to have no pain relief, then let that be her choice. By the same token if a woman chooses to have every type of pain relief available and start it at the first tinge of pain they should have that as well.'

EXACTLY!

Problem is that midwives aren't autonomous anymore no matter how much we're supposed to be. A friend of mine has been a midwife and a very good one for over 30 years. She did something recently that was in the best interest of a baby but went against hospital policy. She said with 30 years of expereince she knew it would benefit the baby, and she treated that baby as an individual.

She's had a bollocking for not following policy.

Starlight - they make me sad as well. Unfortunetly in my position I can't do much. I can go to the shift co-ordinator and argue my woman's case but I don't always have the authority to do something.

Maybe one day I'll be matron and can change the policies, well I'd probably need a 4x budget uplift to be able to implemwnt my changes as well.

reikizen please don't call me a fool.

expat made a valid point about MW's listening to labouring women. You chose to take offence at that and counter with the comment that when babies die it is hard for the MW. It is not unreasonable to point out that actually it is not the MW matters it is the woman who was not listened to.

MW's are not a homeogenous group. Some MW's are wonderful and I have been fortunate enough to meet some of them. Some are horros who frankly should not be allowed to work in the caring profession. I agree that very few actively want to hurt mothers but there are certainly enough who either do not care or feel that they know best and are prepared to bully woman into submission with little thought.

thank you, nancy, very well put.

it's about listening, and in these two particular cases I'm thinking of, the women very definitely were not (one was a nurse, in fact) with dire consequences.

pain is subjective. it is never for another person to decide how much pain a conscious, sensient being is in, especially when she is telling you and expressing to you that she is in pain.

I am scared of dentists and had to have a tooth out recently. Because I was scared they sedated me before they did it, no arguments or discussions, they were just happy to do it.

And yet 3 times I have given birth and each time my thoughts and feelings were dismissed at every stage because they know better.

Obviously we can only go by our own experiences (and those of people we know.)

Mine: on the maternity ward I had to beg and plead every single time for something better than paracetamol on Days 2 & 3 post-section. Lots of pauses, sucking of teeth and "we'll have to ask the doctor when he comes round in an hour/two/three".

But two months later on surgical ward for something much less painful the nurses were falling over themselves to give me pain relief, and when I refused it (wasn't in pain) looked at me like I was bonkers.

5 years ago I presented myself at the local epu in agony. I had already had 2 children and knew the pain I was experiencing was not right. NOBODY listen to me, they told me to go home and take paracetamol.

That evening I had to be rushed back by ambulance, I had an ectopic that had ruptured, I had massive internal bleeding and nearly died. All because nobody listened

I was offered G and A as soon as I wasn't coping with pacing/TENs...with my 3 i wasn't really aware of how many cms I was....don't remember being told though this might be as I turned into a bit of a screaming banshee if anyone attempted to touch me!!

'Mine: on the maternity ward I had to beg and plead every single time for something better than paracetamol on Days 2 & 3 post-section. Lots of pauses, sucking of teeth and "we'll have to ask the doctor when he comes round in an hour/two/three". '

One of the mothers at our surgery, after her experience having a CS first time round, got the GP to prescribe her decent pain relief before she went in for her ELCS second time round, because she'd been left in agony from only paracetomol after her first one. She said the pain of trapped wind, too, was excruciating.

And she's a person who suffers from a very painful chronic condition as it is.

Starlight - I'm very sorry to hear you had such an awful experience, but I'm glad you and others are willing to talk openly about what happened and how you were treated. This is a big part of why I want a section and/or private care for my first baby, I have a lot of anxiety relating to pregnancy and birth anyway due to bad experiences in my past, and it's just completely horrifying to think of being left in intolerable pain because 'it's hospital policy', having procedures done to me without consent when I'm vulnerable and unable to defend myself etc. If women didn't speak out about this more of us would go naively into NHS births assuming that we would be treated as human beings.

I don't believe midwives are bad people who intend to cause suffering, but I do think there's a tendency to treat women in labour in a less respectful way than other patients and to downplay their pain ('different kind of pain', 'a warm bath might do the trick' etc).

Expat that's exactly what I'm going to do if it ever happens again! That or haul the consultant in to do the drug chart for with him.