Unbelievable! In labour midwife tells husband to leave 'visiting hours are over'

[Jzee]

After everything I have recently been through see my thread '( So long as you've got your health..' I cannot forget that after being in labour, on the ward for 10 hours , my dh was told to leave as visiting hours were over! I'm clearly in pain and this woman insists that he leaves can you imagine? An obvious mix up on her part, but no apology given, anyone else had such a nasty midwife?

[forestfly]

My midwife came round to see me and said so sorry youve lost the baby when i hadnt! Thats terrible Jzee!

[lalaa]

oh yes and I'm sure you'll get lots of responses to this one.....
I was having a total nightmare feeding my dd on night 2. the mw who came to 'help' me, picked up my babe, declared that she was obviously hungry in a v. disapproving way and gave her back - no help or anything! it was about 3 in the morning and I was in a total state. I'll never forget that one.
your does sound like a particularly nasty one though....

[Jzee]

Oh, I forgot to mention that after that when I was creasing with pain she wanted me to walk downstairs to the delivery suite. God I hope I bump into her one day!

[Bossanova]

I had a similar problem,lalaa. Terrible troubles getting ds to feed. I was using the 'milking machine' as it had been suggested that I expressed a bit first. She came in and said that I wouldn't get far doing that and I was using the machine too much. Also one time woke me up to ask if I had fed ds - I had!

[jedy]

i had an audience of whole night shift durind 2nd phase and they were eating sandwiches. nurse were coming at 5 am to check my temp and at 6 to take my blood and at 7 for general check up

[lalaa]

i had a really good chat with my community midwife later and she encouraged me to feedback to the hospital (we were given a feedback form when we left), and even though i was in the middle of the war zone that is a newborn's arrival I did it and felt much much better. It helped that it was anonymous.

if you can, do it. It's important that they know what impact they have on people - I know we are all hormonal at that time, but it's soooo special and it's such a shame when it gets marred by a thoughtless or 'jobsworth' midwife.

[pupuce]

I wish more women WOULD complain.... very few do and some really have good grounds for it....
A colleague of mine recently accompanied a woman into labour... she wanted a VBAC and went into spontaneous labour at 43 weeks (yes not that the hospital approved of this but she did not want an induction), when she went in she wasn't dilated (though contracting) so the Dr got very mad and told her off... and said "off you go in theater...." he was so mad that while stitching her up he said : "and next time you wil have section at 37 weeks"..

WHAT A BULLY...... he could have made his point in a MUCH better manner and maybe the mum would be more receptive... as it turns out she will write to complain and she is even more determined to have a VBAC now !

[fisil]

I buzzed for help feeding 8hour old ds at 10a.m.
and orderly told me she'd get someone. So we waited, and waited, and waited. Ds was quite content to sleep it all off.

At 8pm dp & I decided to just leave - they obviously didn't feel we needed any attention. At that point we finally got attention - and were told we couldn't go home cos the baby hadn't fed at three hour intervals through the day!

Shame, cos our experience of delivery was great, just what came after was rubbish. I agree, we should all complain. But I gave in to that new baby warzone and didn't.

[whymummy]

i also had the midwife from hell,i went into labour 7 weeks early they tried to stop it but 2 days later the contractions started again it was night time so they put me in the delivery room,attached to the monitor with the lights off and no bell to call for help,when the pain was really bad i started shouting,it was my first baby and i was terrified after a long time calling for help this midwife came and started shouting in my face to shut up!!!she then came back and without a word gave me pethidine and left me there in the dark again,the labour was horrid and the whole 10 days in hospital a nightmare,cried non stop and even thought about jumping out of one of the windows but no one offered me any support or even a kind word,i didn't sleep in the whole time also i had to take ds upstairs at midnight for his antibiotics,one day i asked the midwife to wake me up before midnight as i was exhausted and she said it was my responsability to stay awake and take him upstairs and they knew i couldn't sleep at all but no,they were not going to go out of their way to wake me up,i did complaint but nothing was done about it

[2under2]

dd1 was born at 4:30 am after a night of labour and three days of prostaglandin induction with no sleep. Afterwards I had a serious pph and ended up spending most of the day in the high dependency unit, eventually being moved to the postnatal ward late afternoon, hooked up to various bits (catheter bag, IV with wheeley stand etc) and feeling very ropey - well, at 8pm they chucked my dh out (at this point dd1 had started a screaming marathon). When I asked how on earth I was supposed to be able to cope with handling the baby etc (seeing I could barely get out of bed) I got a very snotty reply of 'You'll just have to learn! Your husband won't be there for you all the time.'
It all got very desperate and when I was trying to get the catheter out myself so that I could go home at about 11pm they agreed to let dh come in and stay in the TV lounge - where we all spent dd's first night, sleeping on chairs (well, dd sleeping on dh's chest ).
Second labour was a home birth - not without it's excitement but infinitely better.

[GeorginaA]

I'm terrified of the birth this time around - by the end of my first few weeks with ds I was beginning to see the midwives as my enemies rather than people there to help me, which is a very great shame.

I never saw the same midwife twice in any of the antenatal appointments.

I had one midwife publicly humiliate me in front of the antenatal class because she was asking why more women weren't having home deliveries and I mentioned that I was a wuss and wanted an epidural - she spent half an hour telling me what a bad choice I'd made and how women in Africa only had half a panadol for a caesarian!

One of the first midwives I saw when I went into labour was really rough with the internal and then complained I was too uptight and stormed out to find a doctor (who was much more gentle!)

After the birth, the midwives offered no real breastfeeding support and kept telling me ds should be having 45 minute long feeds (something I've since found out is unlikely anyway before the full milk comes in), it took me 2 days before they listened to my demands to see a breastfeeding counsellor, they would wait until dh had gone home in the evening to start pressurising me to bottle feed as baby "obviously wasn't getting enough". Each time I tearfully stuck to my guns and insisted they did a heel blood test to check his blood sugar and each time it was fine.

They kept refusing to let me leave until ds was having regular feeds of 45 mins long but it was so damn hot in there he hardly ever woke up. I was desperate to go home and in the end on the 3rd morning I signed myself out against their advice.

He didn't regain his birth weight until 3 weeks and every single visit (which was about every other day at this point and again a different midwife each time) kept telling me I was "obviously" breastfeeding wrong and ds wasn't feeding long enough and gave me conflicting advice on how to "fix" it. I was very grateful that I had a very support health visitor who saw I was doing a good job and that I was getting more and more upset with the midwives and signed me out of their "care".

As I said, I'm dreading this time around. I've moved area now so I'm hoping that means I get more consistent care and I'm saving up for a doula in the hope that will mean a better experience for me... my main goal this time around is to have a birth that means I can go home same day.

[whymummy]

georgina don't worry i felt the same with my second pregnancy and i suffered prenatal depression but we also moved area and my dd's birth was wonderful,they knew what i'd gone through with ds and were really careful and extra nice,you'll be fine

[doormat]

Youre joking, my dh would of given her a gobful if she said that to him.
I never had any nasty midwifes.

[motherinferior]

Nothing as bad with dd1 but vile all the same; I just got scolded a lot afterwards, for things like the state of the bed (pathetically, I did say I'd tried to clear up - hell, I'd just had a baby under emergency ventouse, of course I was bleeding like a pig) and for not being able to empty my own catheter bag.

Had dd2 at home.

[MABS]

My ds, born at 28 wks, was in ITU . We had just been told that he had a brain bleed and it was touch and go - I was hysterical. Mum and dh took me back down to postnatal ward where a b**tch midwife said they had to leave as visiting was over . Needless to say they didn't..... but i discharged myself 4 hrs later.

[JulieF]

I too saw a different midwife for every antenatal appointment.

My antenatl class humiliation was when themidwife asked everyone who was planning to breastfeed to put their hands up. She looked around the room and said oh yes everyone, oh no sorry just one who isn't. Cue 20 other couples turning round to look at me. She then took me to one side and started to question me.

In hospital the night dd was born I was struggling to put her back in her sleepsuit after changing her nappy and banged her head on the side of the cot. I panicked and pressed my emergenbcy buzzer, no-one came so I went to fetch someone and was told someone would be down in a minute. 10 minutes later a midwofe came and spoke to everyone on the ward except me. I called her over and she said oh yes we know about you the peadiatrician will be down to check her in a couple of hours. At 2am someone finally came to check on dd although they wern't exactly reassuring.

Needless to say I am having a homebirth this time.

[Linnet]

when I was in hospital after having had dd there was a really horrible midwife who only seemed to work nights and she always made the night seem extra long. one night my dd had woken up and didn't seem to want fed so I was holding her for a minute then I was going to check to see if she needed her nappy changed. The midwife was in seeing someone else and came over to me and said are you feeding that baby? and when I said that she didn't seem hungry she said well if you sit there like that she'll want to be up every night playing. She then took dd from me, laid her on the bed and ripped open the poppers on the baby grow and said she needs changed. The way she did it was really rough, I know they handle babies all the time but being a new mother I always treated dd more gently and she was just so rough with her at the time. She never seemed as nice and polite and helpful as all the other midwives. She also gave me a row one morning for leaving dd lying on the bed while I put her dirty nappy in a bin. She said that dd could have fallen off the bed, I didn't think that babies could roll over and fall off beds at 3 days old. If she had rolled over she would have went up the bed rather than off the bed because of where she was lying.
I know this isn't as terrible as the experiences some of you had but it's something that always sticks in my mind. I hope she's not there when I go back in next year.

[SueW]

I have been on two hospital tours this week and it was made quite clear that there are no facilities for husbands/partners to stay overnight except to accompany the labouring woman whilst she is in the labour/birth room. Once she is sent to the postnatal ward, unless it is visiting hours, he is expected to leave fairly promptly.

If you arrive at the hospital at 3am and are admitted to an antenatal ward rather than returning home to await developments, once again, your partner will be expected to trot off home and return during visiting hours.

[winnie1]

I too felt terribly bullied by registras and midwife once there was a change of shift. I was shouted at because I wouldn't have pain relief and then because my baby was big (9lb 10 oz) I was told off (in final moments of 1st stage) because it was written on my notes that I'd refused a glucose test 2 days before (9 days after due date). As they all stood around chatting about how I'd have to have a c-section I had to shout at them because the baby was coming. Hated, hated, hated my labour from the point of shift change. Discharged myself and baby. (Weirdly the midwife who saw me through most of the first stage had asked me if I'd ever considered being a midwife as I knew what I was doing and was handling it so well.)
These experiences infuriate me because they are so unnecessary. Pupuce is right we should complain more. The problem is following birth one is simply so relieved to be home in one piece complaining just gets to be the last hing on the list.
My postnatal care was so rubbish that I still have my notes!

[Gem13]

My MW glared at me and said fiercely (felt like she was shouting) that my baby's heartbeat was dropping and that I had to push harder. This was 5 hours into second stage labour and I had just arrived at the hospital by ambulance from a birthing unit.

It was awful and the worst thing was that at that point I didn't care about the baby or about my own health.

I know it's not my fault and I don't feel guilty just sad that I was thinking like that 5 minutes before wonderful DS arrived.

[waterbaby]

We had a fantastic labour, perhaps because it was short ? in hospital just two hours before DD was born, and all of that time spent in the pool. However there were complications after the birth and I was in absolute agony for the first hour of DD?s life, while we were waiting for the surgeon etc to arrive. DP was cuddling DD and holding my hand, and then they took me off to the operating room and I had a full anaesthetic, going to sleep watching DP holding our tiny baby. It took me several hours afterwards to come around properly (or maybe subconsciously I knew it was the last chance for uninterrupted sleep for, oh, nearly two years now) then they moved us up to the postnatal ward. I?d been awake for less than half an hour when they sent DP home as visiting time was over, kind of comeback in twelve hours time. He protested quite a lot (and in a nice mild mannered kind of way) refused to budge. As he said, he wanted to make sure I got a cup of tea and he had at least had a chance to show me where our overnight bag had been put!
He was allowed to stay for a few minutes more but then told that?s it! I was so lonely that night and scared to be by myself with this tiny baby I?d only just met. To make matters worse they were very understaffed, and so I was put in a ward with one other mother, whose twins were both in the extra care ward. She was meant to be getting some rest, instead she had me (and DD) bawling our eyes out, and the nursing assistants kept telling me to walk around with DD if I couldn?t get her to sleep. The midwifes were lovely, lovely people, but had no time to help us, even with the basics like how to put the nappy on or those first few BF, which I tried completely alone ? DP had been sent home then, and I was desperate to keep DD quiet so this other lady could sleep! If /when we do it again, home births all the way for us!

[happycat]

happend to me to.I had to sit in a darkened ward with other women. while the midwives all were eating chatting and watching t.v. I had been induced and that was my first child. when I went and complained about the pain I was told I was not in labour and that the gel hadn't worked.She gave me a seditive injection and sent me back to bed and told me to get some sleep.She had also given me a sleeping tablet 2 hours before.An hour after the injection my waters broke.Needless to say I was so knocked out I needed to have forcepts due to being to tied to push.I will never forget that bitch and 2 more children on I am still angry.2nd child I was in labour and dialated by about 3cm and labour slowed down and they wanted to take me up to the labour ward and I told them to get lost and went home.I feel like I was fobbed off so they didn't miss their T.V program.

[slug]

I've posted elsewhere about my nightmare delivery, but i think the moment it all started to go downhill was when the midwife shouted at me to "Get of the bed you dirty girl" when my waters broke. Never mind that she had her hand up me rummaging around at the time giving me and internal.

[Hughsie]

With ds1 my midwife was a waste of space - not encouraging at all and kept getting my name wrong. ds2 was a fantastic midwife and after number 1 I chose a homebirth where I knew it would be one of 5 midwives so I knew what I was in for - much better

[Hughsie]

With ds1 my midwife was a waste of space - not encouraging at all and kept getting my name wrong. ds2 was a fantastic midwife and after number 1 I chose a homebirth where I knew it would be one of 5 midwives so I knew what I was in for - much better